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A racist loner sparked an anthrax scare during a 13-year-old hate campaign targeting Stephen Lawrence’s mother and other black community leaders.

Mark Graham sent a barrage of racially abusive and threatening letters to ten victims, including Baroness Lawrence and Baroness Scotland, the first black woman to be appointed a Queen’s Counsel.

One victim also received mail containing white powder which he feared was anthrax.

Graham, 46, of Everdon Road, Hollbrooks, Coventry, was jailed for four-and-a-half years at Birmingham Crown Court .

He had previously been found guilty of eight charges of racially-aggravated harassment following a trial.

Graham admitted a further similar charge and another of attempted racially-aggravated harassment.

His campaign lasted from 2001 to 2014, the court heard.

One victims, a local shop owner, was left terrified for his family’s safety after he received racist letters for six weeks.

A food firm boss received 23 letters in just a month, the court was told.

A third victim was a white gym owner whom Graham “disliked”.

He received racist letters because of the colour of his skin and Graham’s assumption that he was a Christian.

One of the letters contained talcum powder.

Some of the victims were targeted at random, including one assumed by Graham to have been a black immigrant from Somalia.

He turned out to be a white British IT engineer.

Baroness Lawrence, formerly Doreen Lawrence, received hate mail for a month during the summer of 2014, the court heard.

Her son Stephen was stabbed to death in a racist attack in London in 1993.

Andrew Smith, prosecuting, said Graham’s campaign had caused “both distress and fear” and impacted on the personal and professional lives of the victims.

Passing sentence, Judge Mary Stacey said Graham had tried to “humiliate and denigrate successful and high achieving black people” so he could “enjoy a form of power and control”.

She went on: “They were left fearing you would confront them and that you were watching them.

“They never knew when they would receive the next letter and were left in trepidation.”

The judge said the letters were of the most offensive kind imaginable and “attacked the very core of their being”.

She continued: “It has absolutely no place what so ever in our democratic society.”

Neil Fitzgibbons, defending, said Graham could be described as a “loner” who had an isolated life and his writings were “fantasies” and not his real views.

He continued: “He is a complex character.

“He held beliefs that are delusional which are contradicted by rational argument.”