High street chemist Boots has threatened a charity with legal action over a campaign urging the company to reduce the price of the morning-after pill for women, it was revealed yesterday.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) launched its push for affordable emergency contraception last November, pointing out that nearly all the larger pharmacy firms have lowered the price to about £13.50.

Boots was charging £28.25 for Levonelle and £26.75 for its own generic version, which BPAS said was more than any of its major rivals charged.

The company provoked outrage last month by claiming that lowering the cost would encourage “inappropriate use” by women.

After thousands of people petitioned the retailer to reconsider its position, its lawyers issued a legal warning to BPAS, accusing the charity of encouraging the “facilitation and tacit encouragement of personal abuse” towards senior executives.

In a statement published by Sky News, Boots said: “We asked [BPAS] simply to remove personal email details from their campaign widget and to agree not to encourage personal abuse of our people.

“We provided examples of where our employees have received abuse by email and social media in response to BPAS’s campaign.”

But BPAS said Boots had failed to provide evidence of the alleged abuse and that it had “comprehensively misrepresented” emails and social media comments from members of the public.

It added that comments had come from women who needed to use emergency contraception “in a range of circumstances, from being the victim of sexual assault to having missed a pill, as well as pharmacists, GPs, and other healthcare professionals.”

The charity also said that that company had asked it not to make public the details of its legal warning.

In a victory for the campaign, Boots announced that 38 of its stores are now selling a generic version of the pill for £15.99. It will be available in all stores from October.