A Methodist minister sent herself a dead hedgehog and faeces after she fell out with her church's leadership, a court heard yesterday.

The Rev Janet Magee, 62, was said to have falsely told police that she had been the victim of a hate campaign that included threatening telephone calls and abusive letters. A letter sent to church members said: “Your minister is a f***ing whore.”

Another letter, received by the chairman of the Lincoln and Grimsby Methodist Circuit, the Rev David Perry, stated: “If you let Magee in Brigg, you invite Satan. The woman is scum from Hell. I will kill her.”

After Mrs Magee complained to police, a Methodist circuit steward, Roger Chessell, was wrongly arrested. He denied any responsibility and was released without charge.

Mrs Magee was eventually arrested after police secretly installed a closed-circuit television camera at her home, which proved that the hedghehog could not have been delivered.

Forensic science evidence was also said to have proved that she had written some of the letters by using cuttings from a national newspaper, and officers found a mobile phone in her bedroom that had been used to ring her own telephone landline.

Mrs Magee, from Brigg, Lincolnshire, denies perverting the course of justice by falsely claiming that she was a victim of crime.

Simon Waley, for the prosecution, told Grimsby Crown Court that the defendant, who has been suspended as minister in charge of seven churches on the Brigg and Barton-upon-Humber Methodist Circuit, wanted to stay on as minister at the end of an initial five-year term.

But certain members of the church leadership, including Mr Chessell, considered her “hard to work with” and “not a team player”. After she was not offered a further term, she called for a vote from the congregation, who backed her, securing her a further three-year contract in September 2004.

Mr Chessell and a colleague resigned over the issue two months later.

At this time Mrs Magee contacted police: she was receiving anonymous typed letters from someone saying they were unhappy at the new contract, she said. She also reported silent phone calls. Mrs Magee subsequently told police that the hate campaign had resumed in December 2006.

The following year she claimed that the letters had become sinister after being constructed from newspaper and magazine cuttings. She said the letters referred to private information that few knew - such as that she had been adopted and that her car was damaged.

Congregations at the local churches were asked to help to identify the writer. Police installed CCTV cameras at her home - but removed them three weeks later as she had apparently told people of the security protection.

Police later covertly installed another CCTV camera. She went on a professional visit to the US, during which time no threatening letters arrived at the house, Mr Waley said. When she returned in August 2007, the minister claimed to have received a hand-delivered letter containing pieces of dog faeces. The CCTV footage was checked by officers, and no one was found making a suspicious delivery.

Mrs Magee then became a suspect. She later said that she had received a dead hedgehog accompanied by a hand-delivered note that read: “Dead like you will be soon. I told you the police could never catch me.”

She was arrested and her home searched. A sealed white envelope contained cuttings from the Daily Mail, which she took at weekends.

She denied being the author of the hate mail and said she had been “playing at policemen” by compiling threatening letters from newspaper cuttings and ringing her own telephone.

Asked by police why a letter found in her home that been removed from a newspaper was very similar to one that appeared in an abusive note, she replied: “Pass, I cannot explain that.”

When told her home had been watched and nobody was seen delivering the “hedgehog” letter she replied: “I cannot account for that at all.” She told officers: “If I was you I would be thinking, she has done it herself.”

At a later police interview she was asked about forensic science evidence matching her to the letters. She said: “Whoever set me up has done it brilliantly.”

The trial continues.

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