Valentine gesture sparks police alert (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Valentine gesture sparks police alert

10:07am Friday 16th February 2007 in Swindon By Gazette Reporter

A romantic Valentine's Day gist sparked a police alert when four "suspicious" packages were sent through the post.

Officers were called into Zurich at the Interface Business Park in Wootton Bassett when staff spotted four envelopes containing yellow powder on Wednesday.

Workers were on alert after recent letter bombs sent to the DVLA in Swansea and organisations in Birmingham and Oxfordshire.

A spokeswoman for Zurich said the company had strict regulations in place to intercept suspect post.

After some deliberation, PC Steve Burson and PC Chris Skey, of Wootton Bassett police, decided the best course of action was to carefully open the post.

As PC Burson did so he realised the cause of concern was nothing more than crushed Love Heart sweets intended for someone special.

PC Burson said: "The four suspicious envelopes were put through the X-ray machine and it showed a yellow powder.

"The four envelopes were all addressed to the same person and when they saw all this yellow dust they thought it was suspicious.

"When we decided to open them we found it was Valentine cards with Love Heart sweets in each envelope that had obviously been crushed in the post."

PC Burson said the reaction of the staff was understandable in light of the recent letter bombs.

"Obviously one of their employees saw this dust and got slightly concerned and called us in," he said.

A spokeswoman for Zurich said these were worrying times for staff working in post rooms.

"This is still a very sensitive issue with the recent letter bombs across the UK," she said.

"These people working in post rooms are going to be sensitive to this sort of thing.

"We have really stringent security policies in place so that this sort of thing does get highlighted in case there's a risk.

"There's a lot of people across the UK unnerved by this sort of thing."

Letter bombs have been sent to motoring-related companies in Swansea, London and Wokingham. A private house in Folkestone in Kent has also been targeted.

Police are investigating possible links between those attacks.

The investigation into the seven letter bombs is being co-ordinated by the Association of Chief Police Officers' national co-ordinator for domestic extremism Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell.