Man questioned by police after anti-semitic email sent to councillors

A spokesman for the force said it was investigating the origin of the email, sent to cllrs Ben Grower, Dennis Gritt and Beryl Baxter, which comprised a short anti-semitic comment referring to Labour leader Ed Milliband, who is Jewish.

Cllr Grower, who is Jewish, told the Daily Echo he had reported the email, which he claimed originated with a supporter of political party Ukip.

A Dorset Police spokesman said: "Police are aware of these allegations and currently investigating them.

"A local man has been speaking to officers in relation to this incident and is helping them with their enquiries.

"No arrests have been made."

Councillor Dennis Gritt said he had been "horrified" by the email, but had deleted it immediately believing it to be junk.

"I get a lot of junk mail and rubbish like that, I just deleted it and forgot all about it," he said.

"There was an address on it but I can't remember who sent it.

"I was shocked by it, it was an awful thing to say and for anyone to hear, but obviously it would be particularly distressing to read if you are Jewish.

"My sympathies are with councillor Grower at this time."

Cllr Grower, the leader of the Labour group, came under fire last week after branding Ukip a "racist party" in an email to a local resident.

After the resident, Alan Roberts, expressed his support for the party in an email into which cllr Grower was copied, the Labour leader replied saying: “As you now appear to be a supporter of a racist party i.e. UKIP please do not send me any further emails as they will be put in my junk mail folder and automatically deleted.”

He later told the Daily Echo: "UKIP is a racist party.

“But I don’t believe that everyone that votes for UKIP is racist just like I don’t believe everyone who votes for Labour is socialist."

Mr Milliband last year announced his ambition to be the first Jewish Prime Minister of the UK since Conservative Benjamin Disraeli in the nineteenth century.