A LURID letter writer caused terror in his community with repeated threats of rape to neighbours and shop workers.

Paul Hicks was jailed for 20 months for his vile campaign and was told: “You have deeply upset many decent people.”

Hicks targeted people he knew, but they were left wondering and fearing what the 32-year-old was capable of doing.

His final victim was a neighbour in a block of flats in Saltburn – who left Teesside Crown Court in tears after bravely reading her impact statement.

She told how her anxiety worsened, work suffered, and said: “This has taken over my life.”

The court heard how Hicks had asked her for a date, but she declined, and days later she received three letters containing a series of sexual references.

He wrote: “Please baby, let us do this, otherwise I'll rape you.

“If you don’t react to this letter, I will get you, rape you and keep you as my rape doll.”

Prosecutor Victoria Lamballe said the woman was so frightened she moved out of the flat to stay with her parents.

Footage from CCTV in the flats showed Hicks going to the woman’s door during the night, naked apart from a pair of socks.

As she read her statement, she told the court: “I didn’t know if he would do any of those things he talked about."

“I kept asking myself ‘why me, when I had been so kind to him.”

The first victim was a friend who even trusted Hicks to be left alone in his home.

He received a total of ten “extremely disturbing and distressing” letters in which Hicks spoke of stealing photographs of both him and his baby daughter.

He told of his depraved thoughts over babies and children, and made reference to the sexual assault of a toddler he was involved in – which turned out to be fantasy.

Hicks also told his friend he had raped him after putting crushed sleeping pills in his tea.

Miss Lamballe described the victim as “utterly distraught” and “feeling extreme disgust”.

Another man who became a target was a neighbour who complained about loud music coming from Hicks’s flat.

He spoke of feeling sick and disgusted at the racist and sexual content of the letters.

Two young shop workers also received notes, one saying: “If I don’t get what I want, I will follow you home and rape you.”

Paul Abrahams, mitigating, said Hicks has a low IQ and mild learning disabilities, and called his mother to give evidence.

She told the court that her son’s social services care should never have been withdrawn because he cannot look after himself, and things got worse when he started drinking heavily.

Mr Abrahams said: “I said to him what he did was disgraceful, they are appalling letters and he agrees with that.”

Judge Morris told Hicks: “You said some of the most horrendous things, but it is not something ever anticipated you would carry out. What caused this was you hitting the bottle."

Hicks, of Greta Street, Saltburn, admitted harassment, exposure, theft and five charges of sending malicious communications.