Inquiry demanded over racist letter

Mr Patel was outraged by the racist letter

A Gloucestershire man has received a letter from a reward card company on which his surname was replaced by a racist insult.

Pravin Patel, from Abbeydale, got the letter on Thursday from Nectar - complete with the slogan "time to celebrate with your first Nectar points update!".

Mr Patel said he is seething with anger and is demanding an inquiry.

The chairman of Nectar, launched last year by Sainsbury's, Barclaycard, Debenhams and BP, has apologised.

This is the work of a sick individual

Keith Mills
Nectar Chairman

Mr Patel, an analyst at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, told the BBC: "Initially I thought it was a spelling mistake.

"Normally any junk mail like this, I give to my children to open but there was no way I was going to let anyone open this.

Mr Patel added: "This person has deliberately gone into the computer system and changed my name - if that person was here now I would like to thump him, or wring his neck.

"My main concern is how many other families has this gone to? What sort of hurt, anger and rage is it causing?"

Keith Mills, Nectar chairman, apologised profusely and said: "This is the work of a sick individual.

"If we find out who it is, they will be sacked."

And the company's marketing director promised if the person responsible was tracked down, they would be handed over to the police.

Richard Campbell said: "We are making every effort to identify the person who did this - if we do so, we will pass their details to the police."