'Dear Pikey, you may live in a council house but it doesn't have to look like one': Stroke sufferer receives abusive letter from neighbour for keeping his 'tacky Christmas lights up until March'

Kevin Franklin got a friend to put up the huge festive display on his Bedfordshire council house after he suffered a stroke in November. He stopped turning them on in January but said they helped calm his autistic son Bradley, 15, and plans to switch them back on for Autism Awareness Month in April. Despite the good cause he has received a poison pen-letter from someone on his street in Dunstable, calling his family 'pikeys' and the lights 'grotesque', 'tacky' and 'an eyesore'.