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Animal rights fanatics face jail for blackmail campaign
Four animals rights activists face up to 14 years in jail after being found guilty of blackmailing companies who supplied Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Gerrah Selby, 20, Daniel Wadham, 21, Gavin Medd-Hall, 45, Heather Nicholson, 41, and Trevor Holmes, 51, were accused of orchestrating a campaign between 2001 and 2007.
All five denied conspiracy to blackmail but Selby, Wadham, Medd-Hall and Nicholson were found guilty yesterday at Winchester Crown Court. Holmes was cleared of the charge.
One of the jurors refused to be seen in court while the verdict was announced after 33 hours and 48 minutes of deliberation.
Selby, Wadham and Medd-Hall were released on conditional bail, while Nicholson was remanded in custody until sentencing on January 19.
The maximum sentence for the offence is 14 years.
Three other people – Gregg Avery, Natasha Avery and Daniel Amos – previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail.
The hierarchy of the group, called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac), used threats such as claiming that managers of the companies were paedophiles, hoax bombs parcels, criminal damage and threatening telephone calls to force them to cut links with the animal testing company. The aim was to target suppliers or any company with a secondary link with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), based in Cambridge.
One of the features of intimidation included sending used sanitary towels in the post, saying they were contaminated with the Aids virus, and personal campaigns against the management of companies including daubing roads outside their homes with words like "Puppy Killer".
Nicholson, from Eversley in Hampshire, was a founder member of Shac, who managed the "menacing" campaigns against firms named on the group's website.
The blackmail would only stop when they put out a "capitulation statement" to Shac saying they would not supply HLS, which conducts animal testing for the pharmaceutical industry.
Medd-Hall, from Croydon, south London, was a computer and research expert who was high up in Shac and who uncovered company links with HLS.
Wadham, from Bromley, south-east London, joined Shac in 2005 and regularly attended demonstrations against the firms and HLS.
Selby, from Chiswick in west London, was also a regular activist at demonstrations in the UK and Europe, including a violent protest in Paris.
Holmes, from Newcastle upon Tyne, was alleged to be a senior member of Shac who took part in criminal damage in the UK, the court heard.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Robbins, senior investigating officer of Kent Police, said outside court: "Today's verdict reflects the continuing commitment of law enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to bring to justice those who seek to repress reasonable discussion and who commit serious offences in the name of animal rights."
He paid tribute to the victims of the "systematic and relentless intimidation" which lasted for six years until arrests were made on May 1 2007.The defendants were linked to criminal activity in Europe and America, targeting companies there.
CPS reviewing lawyer Alastair Nisbet said outside court: "This has been a long and very detailed investigation which was made all the more difficult by the fact that the defendants concealed their criminal activities behind a cloak of lawful protest, by their use of encryption and file-wiping software on their computers, and by the routine destruction of any documents that they thought might incriminate them."
HLS defended its right to use animal testing as a "small but essential" part of researching and developing new medicines.
An HLS spokesman said: "Freedom of expression and lawful protest are important rights in our democratic society but so too is the right to conduct vital biomedical research, or to support organisations that perform such research, without being harassed and threatened.
"The UK environment for such biomedical research has improved greatly in recent years, this is the direct result of positive action taken by law enforcement agencies to control animal rights extremism.
"As a consequence, we have seen greater openness in the research community that must lead to improved dialogue and better understanding – animal research remains a small but essential part of such research. We commend the Government for its continued support of biomedical research in the UK."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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