Hateful anti-gay posters were yesterday being ripped down from lampposts in Hamilton City after a number of people called the corporation to complain.

Roger Sherratt, secretary of Hamilton Corporation, said his workers had pulled the posters down from various locations after they mysteriously, and illegally, seemed to appear overnight.

“The posters were full of hatred. They talked about homosexual people being satanic and demons,” said Mr. Sherratt.

“They were very homophobic and I would say had been done by someone who was not well. As soon as we received the reports, we went to take them down. If anyone else sees one, I would suggest they take it down immediately and put it in the trash.”

Mr. Sherratt said it appeared that the posters, which were all hand-written, were the work of one man, and an illiterate one at that, as the spelling left much to be desired.

But he said he believed they stated that an anti-gay march would be held later this month.

“They were obviously put up by someone very hate-filled and clearly very nasty against homosexuals,” said Mr. Sherratt.

“They were very badly written and were stuck on in such a way that when we took them down, they tore to pieces.”

Mr. Sherratt reminded the public that it was illegal to place posters on lampposts around the city, regardless of their content, and said anyone found doing so could be prosecuted.

He said they were always taken down by corporation staff, and the culprits were given warnings.

However, in this case, the identity of those responsible was not known.

“We have not made a complaint to Police yet about this case, we just removed the posters, but we will point out to them tomorrow that we are having this problem,” said Mr. Sherratt.