British govt cracks down on animal rights extremists

Plans to give British police new powers to tackle animal rights extremists who demonstrate outside scientists’ homes are being announced by ministers today.

The move will form part of a package of measures to tighten protection for those in the biotechnology industry involved in tests on animals.

They come amid growing concern that the UK economy is being harmed by the huge security cost of dealing with animal rights campaigners.

Reports earlier this week predicted that Home Secretary David Blunkett would make it a specific criminal offence to protest outside someone’s home in an intimidating manner and an arrestable offence to return to someone’s home after being found guilty of aggressive behaviour.

Ministers were also expected to extend anti-stalking legislation so it can be used to protect a group of employees, rather than just a named individual, as at present.

Reforms will also seek to bring closer collaboration by police and other agencies to crack down on extremists.

Mr Blunkett said on Wednesday: “These people are committing crimes and they should be dealt with harshly.”

The chief executive of Britain’s biggest drug company Glaxo SmithKline, Jean-Pierre Garnier, said earlier this week that his employees were being “terrorised” by extremists, whom he condemned as “despicable cowards”.

Mr Garnier said he knew of other companies which had refused to invest in research facilities in the UK because they could not guarantee the safety of their staff.

Glaxo itself was spending tens of millions of pounds on protecting staff and buildings from militants.

Although companies have won civil injunctions barring individual activists from approaching the homes of specific scientists, it has proved more difficult to deal with groups protesting outside their employees’ addresses.

Concern has also been raised that some militants have sent letters to neighbours of scientists involved in animal testing, accusing them of being paedophiles.

In recent months, companies indirectly involved in testing, such as contractors building a new research laboratory at Oxford University, have also been targeted.

Construction company Montpellier and concrete producer RMC have pulled out of involvement with the lab following threats.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: “We welcome the introduction of new powers to take action against those who terrorise people who engage in entirely legitimate research.

“Their campaign of intimidation must be brought to an end before anybody is seriously hurt. However, simply introducing new powers won’t tackle the problem on its own. They need to be more vigorously enforced, and the CPS and the police must cooperate to ensure people responsible for this behaviour are brought before the courts and dealt with.”

He added: “Animal experimentation is tightly regulated in the UK. Attempts by extremists to close down Britain’s research laboratories could drive experimentation abroad to possibly less regulated countries, which is not in the interests of animal welfare.”

Andrew Butler, of the animal rights group Peta, claimed today the movement was being “demonised” and treated with a “very broad brush”.

While he condemned violence, he doubted that the measures would deter those who were determined to carry on their activities, he said.

He also urged the industry to spend more money on developing alternatives to animal testing.

Home Office minister Caroline Flint said: ``We are not talking about denying people the right to protest, we are talking about extremist campaigns against companies involved in animal research and in more recent times against the suppliers to those companies as well."