COUNCILLORS met on Tuesday to review their 20-year ban on religious posters in libraries in Buckinghamshire, following the uproar which erupted last month when a church service advertisement was banned by Wycombe library.

The meeting was the start of a process that will take legal opinion on whether the ban breaks equality policies or human rights legislation. The Commission for Racial Equality and library staff will also be consulted.

It will be discussed again on Monday by Buckinghamshire County Council's leader's advisory group, which is, in effect, the council cabinet meeting in private. The ruling Conservative group will also talk about it on January 20.

But there will be no open debate by councillors.

But the final decision on whether to lift the ban rests with the cabinet member for community services, Beaconsfield member Margaret Dewar.

Cllr Dewar has been at the centre of an avalanche of threatening abuse since the story broke in the national press. Her email address was posted on the British National Party's website and hundreds of abusive emails followed.

Critics, either unaware of, or ignoring the fact the ban was long-standing council policy, was not initiated by Cllr Dewar and included all faiths, accused her of being anti-Christian and pro-Muslim.

"One card had a picture of the Madonna and Child, but said inside "I hope this card offends you".

An email called her "bitch", while an Eid card from abroad praised Cllr Dewar's actions against the "infidel religion of the Christian dogs" and promised a Muslim state in Britain.

"You can't imagine what it has been like," she said. "I can't believe this has happened to me. I have had threats. I had letters telling me not to go to church. I have never had anything like this in my whole life.

"I have had the most horrendous email, even from vicars. I cannot tell you what this has done to me."

Buckinghamshire County Council's library staff have also been abused and threatened and the police have been called in.

The ban which applies to all faiths and to posters of a sexual and political nature, was agreed in 1983, and reviewed in 1991 when it was fully debated and agreed by the council. There have been no other complaints, until now.

On Tuesday members of Cllr Dewar's policy advisory group considered suggestions drawn up by library chiefs which are understood to include proposals that the bans should be lifted and librarians take decisions over contentious issues.

Sympathy for the abuse Cllr Dewar had had to suffer came earlier the same day at a cabinet meeting from the leader of the county council David Shakespeare.

National press reports had been based on ignorance he said, adding that the Free Press had been the only newspaper to produce an informed report. "I want to welcome the fact that someone looked into it," he said.