People in Southmead reacted angrily last night after BBC television programme Panorama portrayed the estate as being rife with racists.

Members of Southmead Rugby Club were among those invited to watch the documentary at the Greenway Centre in Doncaster Road.

They said many of the incidents of abuse shown on the programme were carried out by a group of children and teenagers and it was unrepresentative of the majority of the 9,000 people who live on the estate.

Two undercover Asian reporters posed as husband and wife and spent two months living in Southmead. They used hidden cameras and microphones to record incidents which included physical as well as verbal abuse.

In one incident in the programme, called Hate on the Doorstep, Tamanna Rahman, 19, had stones thrown at her and was told to get out of the area.

In another, a young boy threatened to kill her and tried to steal her purse.

Other clips showed her being called "Raghead" and being told: "Go away. Iraq's that way."

Another person threatened to slit her throat and kick her "back to Paki land".

Barry Jakes, 65, chairman of Southmead Rugby Club, who was born in the area, said the programme was one-sided.

He said: "Half the stuff that they showed took place outside Southmead. The programme made the whole of the Mead look bad.

"Southmead Rugby Club is mixed. We have Nigerian players, Polish players. Everybody gets on."

Club director John Knights, 59, said: "Southmead is quite a multicultural area. There are a lot of Asian families here including Muslim families and I haven't heard of any of this before.

"I can't deny what was shown on the programme but it was the same group involved in the incidents."

Head coach Trevor Sealey, 44, said: "9,000 people live in Southmead and three or four mindless morons were shown on a national programme.

"The two assaults that were mentioned, one was carried out in Henbury and one in Lockleaze. If you go to any estate in the country you will find racism. This programme did not portray the vast majority of the people on the estate. They seemed to be blaming Southmead for all the country's ills. It made me very angry."

BBC Panorama executive producer Tom Giles has today - Tuesday - contacted the Evening Post to say that the first of these two incidents happened in Southmead, and the second incident was outside the estate.

Marion Garland, 77, who lives in Pen Park Road and is involved in many community groups, said: "I thought it was underhanded and sly. This happens in every town – why pick on Southmead? The youngsters who were shown in the programme don't represent the people of Southmead.

"The majority of people in Southmead are damn good people."

The film also included clips of people on the estate helping Ms Rahman, including one man coming out of his house and intervening when a boy tried to snatch her purse.

In a video diary recorded for the programme, Ms Rahman said: "I haven't faced as much racism in my entire life as I have during these eight weeks here in Bristol.

"There are some really nice people, some incredibly friendly people but I'm sorry the thing that is going to stay with me the most is the absolutely hellish time I have had every time I've walked out of the door."

Director of Support Against Racist Incidents, Batook Pandya, said a large number of SARI's clients come from Southmead and most of the time the kind of yobs shown in the programme were involved but occasionally it was neighbours.

He said: "There are a lot of good people in Southmead and a lot of good work is being done there to ensure we have cohesion."

Police said the documentary was unfair and Southmead was a strong community-focussed neighbourhood.

Inspector Mark Runacres who has responsibility for Southmead said: "We believe this documentary is an unfair portrayal of Southmead and the vast majority of people that live there.

"Of course any incidence of racism is totally unacceptable and we always deal with it robustly but we want to make it absolutely clear that this documentary only concentrates on a small handful of individuals from the Southmead area.

"The police and other agencies are already aware of who these individuals are and we are actively working with a majority of them to confront and tackle their problems."

The next Southmead PACT meeting is being held on Thursday at 6.30pm at Wigton Crescent United Reform church.

Any residents wishing to express their concerns or to suggest ways of tackling the issues raised in the Panorama documentary are invited to attend.