A BOLTON MP has complained to the police after he began receiving around 10 obscene e-mails a day.

Dr Brian Iddon and his staff decided to inform officers after they started to receive a constant stream of hardcore pornographic images.

The offensive e-mails have also been offending many of his colleagues, and a hi-tech filter is to be installed on the parliamentary computer network after he asked Commons leader Robin Cook to upgrade the network to stop the e-mails from coming through.

He said the influx of material jammed his inbox, making it difficult to sift through e-mails to find genuine messages from constituents. It is also hindering his staff, whose time is wasted deleting the unwanted e-mails.

Dr Iddon, MP for Bolton South-east, said: "We receive hard core pictures on a daily basis and my staff have better things to do than deal with them.

"The worst comes by a method called Hyper Text Mark-up Language, which means if you happen to open that e-mail accidentally, page after page after page of this highly offensive material is displayed on the screen without any mechanism for switching it off. I want to see filters in place."

His staff said the e-mails, which had become more frequent over the past six months, had been reported to Bolton police.

Dr Iddon said: "When my staff go away for a week, the inbox fills up so much that some constituents receive automatic replies which tell them their e-mail cannot get through."

Many home computer users are also regularly sent unsolicited, explicit e-mails -- a trend which has boosted sales of filter software in software shops.

Police confirmed Dr Iddon's office had complained about the e-mails and they were looking into the matter.

A prankster has also been signing up the Labour MP to the Right-wing British National Party subscriber list.

The packages block e-mails which contain key words such as "sex" or "porn" from reaching an individual's inbox. Parents who want to protect their children from the obscene messages are particularly keen on buying the filters.