Victims of the Soho bomb blast were at the centre of a major security alert at Chelmsford's Broomfield Hospital.

Police sealed off a car park at the hospital after a letter was sent to the victims by members of the Mormons religious group.

The two men, Gary Partridge and another known only as Andy, were caught in the blast last Friday which killed three people and injured more than 70.

They are being treated for burns at the specialist unit there.

The dead were later identified as Andrea Dykes, 27, from Colchester, and her friends John Light, 32, of Colchester and Nick Moore, 31, of London.

Worried hospital staff called police on Wednesday afternoon after a letter, six inches by four inches, arrived at the St Andrew's Centre.

An Essex Police spokesman said: "It was addressed to the victims of last week's bomb blast and we could see inside the envelope.

"It had a card with the words In God We Trust written on. Nothing else apart from that," he said.

"It seemed like a goodwill letter but the staff did not want to take any chances and called the police."

The letter was positioned in a car park and an exclusion area of 100 metres was set up to stop people going near.

But after about 40 minutes staff were allowed to return to work and the scene was declared safe at 3.20pm.

A police spokeswoman said after the incident the letter had been sent from somewhere in the north of England by representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints, known as the Mormons.

"We will be getting in touch with them to advise them of the sensitivity of sending such things to people involved in incidents like these.

"Although it was obviously sent with the best intentions, to just send something addressed to 'the bomb victims' at this time we feel is ill-judged," she added.

Despite the scare the spokeswoman said it was not felt there was any need to step up security.

"We got involved as procedure because the hospital cannot take any chances but we do not feel there is any danger to these people as they were not directly targeted in the first place," she said.

The two men were yesterday said to be "on the road to recovery" and still being treated for the burns they sustained.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.