THE Royal Mail has saved an animal rights group from bankruptcy after hunt supporters cost it £500,000 by bombarding its Freepost address with junk mail and heavy parcels.

The League Against Cruel Sports has agreed a rescue package with Royal Mail after a fund-raising drive was hijacked by hunters and left the association with a crippling bill.

What started as a plea to its supporters for donations to a free-billing address ended up involving the bomb squad, police and Royal Mail fraud investigators. Problems began when hunt enthusiasts heard about the drive to raise money for the league’s hunt monitors and decided to sabotage it.

A round-robin e-mail was sent to hunters urging them to abuse the system by sending Christmas cards, empty envelopes and bulky packages.

Within a fortnight, van loads of bricks, telephone directories, heavy books, abusive letters and animal excrement were sent to the league’s offices in South London. One hunter posted a dead squirrel.

The joke soon turned sour when the Royal Mail depot in Poole, Dorset, called in the bomb squad after workers discovered a couple of suspect packages addressed to the league. They proved to be house bricks.

The scam intensified when Jeremy Clarkson used a newspaper column to urge hunt supporters to take part, saying that it would leave the league less to spend on surveillance equipment. The presenter of Top Gear said that he was going to send a “paving stone or a horse”.

As the league struggled to cope with the growing volume of mail, all of which Britain’s biggest anti-hunt group had to pay for, it decided to call in Royal Mail investigators and detectives.

Officials tapped into the network of e-mails among hunters. It is alleged that one was sent on by the wife of an employee at Buckingham Palace, while another is believed to have been sent from the e-mail address of the Master of Foxhounds Association, hunting’s governing body.

Alastair Jackson, the chairman of the association, said that he was not aware of any e-mails passed through his office, but he added that “everyone applauded the idea at the time”. The original e-mail being forwarded stated that the Countryside Alliance backed the idea, but this was refuted by the alliance.

Now the Royal Mail has agreed that the league should pay only for those items of mail sent before it alerted the postal service to the problem and cancelled the Freepost address.

This means that the league’s bill will be about £2,000, not the estimated £500,000, which would have almost certainly bankrupted the group.

Wanda Wyporska, spokeswoman for the league, which was set up in 1924 to stop violence against animals, said that half the sacks of mail were from the West Country. Some senders, she said, had used company franking machines.

“We are delighted to say that the hunters’ attempt to bankrupt the league has failed spectacularly. They have wasted the time and resources of the police and the Royal Mail through their petty and spiteful campaign. Next time the price of a letter goes up, you have the hunters to thank.”

Police said that they were investigating whether the culprits could be charged with theft, fraud or sending malicious post. Just forwarding the e-mail could lead to criminal proceedings. A spokesman for Royal Mail added: “There is no point sending any more mail, it will be returned or destroyed.”

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