About 150 Royal Mail staff were evacuated from York's city centre sorting office after a suspect package was discovered there today.

Police were alerted just before 7am and sealed off Leeman Road while Army bomb disposal experts were called in to deal with the package.

The alert follows the recent spate of letterbomb attacks on people linked to farming and agriculture. Two happened in North Yorkshire - one saw a 58-year-old sheep farmer injured by a bomb at his home near Ripon and the others in East Yorkshire, Cheshire, North Wales and the West Midlands.

Police have linked the six incidents and have confirmed they are the work of animal rights extremists.

The all-clear was given at the York sorting office just after 9am, when members of the Royal Logistics Corps Bomb Disposal team, from Catterick, X-rayed the package and found it to be a genuine item of mail - a delivery of cat and dog tags destined for a veterinary firm.

The incident follows a similar alert at a sub post office in Great Ouseburn earlier this week. Police and explosives experts examined a suspect package there which was also later found to be a genuine item of mail.

Sergeant Nigel Tottie, of North Yorkshire Police, said the alert was sparked because of the size and shape of the padded package and the fact it had been badly addressed to an animal-related firm.

Updated: 10:42 Friday, January 19, 2001