A GAY man says he wants to move home after thugs sent him hate mail and scrawled the word “sinner” across his front door.

Anthony Rivers of Whinchat Road, Thamesmead, woke up to find the offensive graffiti when his partner was leaving for work.

But he had to wait four days for his housing association, Gallions, to remove it, despite the graffiti being flagged up as high priority.

The incident followed a hate campaign of abusive letters which he received over a number of weeks.

One letter told the 30-year-old to “burn in hell” for being homosexual while another said “men should only lay with women”.

Waking up to the graffiti on September 8, Mr Rivers said: “I was horrified someone could do this.

“Loads of questions went through my head and then I realised people would walk past my door and see it.

“I was embarrassed more than anything else.”

Mr Rivers, who works as a youth support worker, called Gallions and asked the housing association to clean his door.

He said: “I was told someone would be round to clean the door in 24 hours but no-one came.

“It should have been done straight away.

“Instead I had to come home to see the door in that state.

“I was stuck with the haunting of what happened.”

Despite the graffiti finally being removed Mr Rivers says he is still waiting for his door to be repainted.

He said: “Gallions told me it wasn’t in its policy.

“It has come round to sand it down but it hasn’t been repainted yet.

“I just feel so neglected. I hate coming home now.

“I want to move. There is such a lack of support.”

Speaking about the hate mail, he added: “I thought it was someone joking around but when I started getting more, I got concerned.

“One said homosexuality is an abomination and the last one I received told me to burn in hell.

“It’s all affected me emotionally.

“My doctor referred me to a psychologist and I’m taking anti-depressants.

“I just want to leave.”

Police are investigating the matter.

A Gallions spokeswoman said: “Gallions has a policy of removing any offensive graffiti within 24 hours of it being reported.

“We received a call from Mr Rivers on September 8 and immediately raised a job ticket to have the graffiti removed in line with our policy.

“Unfortunately our graffiti removal team missed this ticket on Friday and did not carry out the work until Monday.

“This was an administration error and we are sorry Mr Rivers suffered more upset.”

The spokeswoman added: “We take all reports of hate crime very seriously and our graffiti removal team has now put an extra system in place so job tickets cannot be missed off the urgent round.

“Under the terms of the tenancy agreement, residents are usually responsible for painting their own front doors.

“However, due to the circumstances of this case, we will repaint Mr Rivers’ front door free of charge.”