The same day Debbie Vincent was also raided. All three were charged with conspiracy to blackmail Huntingdon Life Sciences HLS , the notorious animal research laboratory.
It incorporated the Animal Rights Index, set up by Special Branch in as a police intelligence gathering unit, but with no operational role. Husband and wife Greg Avery and Heather Nicholson had spearheaded successful campaigns against two laboratory animal breeders, Consort Beagles and Hillgrove Cats. Many of its demonstrations were against financial institutions in the City of London and close links were forged with London Animal Action. He also attended many demonstrations, among them ones against HLS.
LAA hired four minibuses to take people there and Evans was one of the drivers. In January HLS nearly collapsed and had to be rescued from bankruptcy by the last minute intervention of Lord Sainsbury, Labour minister for science. Other campaigns sprung up as well, including one targeting a proposed laboratory in Cambridge that was successful.
In the eyes of the state, forestalling this momentum was essential to the future of the highly profitable pharmaceutical, chemical and biotech sectors.
The domino effect that this would have on the pharmaceutical industry, the biochemical industry, its customers, its finance stakeholders, etc, would be serious concern for government in terms of economic stability.
But he mainly spied on campaigns against new laboratories in Cambridge and Oxford and was not a trusted member of the SHAC inner circleIn he allegedly moved to Norway to live with his girlfriend. What NPOIU needed was a spy entrenched within the group yet that proved difficult due to the way it was run, with a handful of trusted activists directing the operation from a cottage in Hampshire.
Prior to that he had spied on groups campaigning for gay rights. Today HLS are unable to trade in more than 10 per cent of their shares. This is a very sick company. Using a variety of tactics intended to draw public attention and hamper operations such as mass protests, small demonstrations, leaflet drops, lock-ons, blockades, and email alerts, SHAC has brought HLS to its knees. The informed public finds the business of HLS repulsive and will not allow them to regain their feet.
HLS have been exposed to the public time and time again. On each occasion a very familiar story comes out. It is in the public domain that HLS workers have falsified test results and been found guilty of animal cruelty. Government legislation and public money has come thick and fast to ensure this distasteful, scientifically unproven commercial concern continues unhindered by the progress of public opinion. High Court injunctions restrict public protest to a few hours per week at the gates of HLS.
Corporate Watch Display the following 8 comments. Skip to content or view mobile version. UK Indymedia. The world's media, prompted by police press officers, were quick to condemn activists by pointing to harassment against the employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences HLS and their customers, shareholders and investors.
Actions against HLS, not linked to those convicted, such as hoax bombs, letters alleging paedophilia, and threats were pointed to as evidence of the defendants' extremism. Police spokesmen and the National Extremist Coordination Unit NETCU , the branch of the police set up to deal with the AR movement and other expressions of the public's dissent, hailed the convictions as a victory. What was not examined in the media was the worrying development of the repressive use of the law which lead to the conviction of the four defendants.
Corporate Watch has followed the progress of the trial at Winchester since the beginning. The reason we were concerned about the trial is that we see it as part of a larger attack on the animal rights movement motivated by the state's desire to protect private corporations against dissent. Since the animal rights movement began to effectively challenge the profits of those involved in vivisection and the pharmaceutical industry the state has repeatedly responded with new repressive measures.
In May this year Sean Kirtley, an activist involved with Stop Sequani Animal Torture SSAT , was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for updating a website with news about a legal, nonviolent campaign to close down Sequani laboratories in Ledbury.
His only crime was to protest lawfully against the lab and to update a website. NETCU, however, was not satisfied with seeing animal rights activists banged up for four and a half years and chose to charge campaigners associated with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty SHAC with 'conspiracy to blackmail', an offence carrying up to 14 years in prison. In May , police arrested 32 people in raids dubbed 'Operation Achilles'.
Since then, 15 people have been charged with 'conspiracy' and are being tried in two separate trials, of which this was the first. The charges relate to six years of concerted campaigning against HLS, the largest contract testing laboratory in Europe.
The defendants included people who had been involved in SHAC from the outset. It had also lost dozens of customers, the Bank of England provided its banking facilities and the government had to underwrite it for insurance purposes.
At the same time harsh new laws were introduced against anti-vivisectionists. The response of SHAC was one of defiance and denial. It deployed undercover police officers, one of whom — Adrian Radford — became a prominent figure in the group. He left in January , just four months before the raids.
What happened next: Immediately afterwards the group was thrown into chaos and the website left unchanged for days. Of those arrested 15 were charged with conspiracy to blackmail, an offence carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years.
In Dececember seven of the defendants were convicted and received sentences of up to 11 years.
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