The Sherlock co-stars, who have been together since 2000, contacted the authorities over a series of nasty posts by an unknown blogger, which included death threats.

The posts were screengrabbed by Abbington and uploaded to her Twitter.com account. In the caption, she wrote, "To the coward who's since shut this blog down. We've already informed the police sweetie. They have all the info."

The police are investigating the messages, according to Britain's The Sun newspaper.