Animal rights 'terror' gang jailed

Sarah Whitehead, 53, Nicole Vosper, 22, Thomas Harris, 27, Jason

Mullan, 32, and Nicola Tapping, 29, were all members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac) who waged an international conspiracy of intimidation against a host of supply companies, using Shac as a front.

The youngest member of the conspiracy Alfie Fitzpatrick, 21, received a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 100 hours of community work.

Winchester Crown Court heard, during the sentencing hearing, the total cost of damage and increased security costs as a result of the campaign was 12.6m to around 40 companies targeted, the court heard.

Action carried out included hoax bombs posted to the homes of staff and offices, criminal damage, threats of violence and abusive telephone calls. Some company directors had leaflets distributed near their home falsely telling neighbours they were convicted paedophiles and others had used tampons sent through the post saying the blood was HIV positive.

The abuse would only stop when the company issued a capitulation statement on the Shac website and cut links with the lab.

The six were part of a larger conspiracy involving the founder members of Shac, Gregg and Natasha Avery and Heather Nicholson, who used the organisation as a front to intimidate companies under badges like the Animal Liberation Front or the Animal Rights Militia.

The trio were jailed in January last year for blackmailing companies linked to Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).

Whitehead, of Littlehampton, West Sussex, Vosper, of Newquay, Cornwall, and Harris, of Ringwood, Hampshire, admitted conspiracy to blackmail companies and suppliers linked to the Cambridge-based company between 2001 and 2008.

Mullan, of Holloway Road, London, Tapping, of Ringwood and Fitzpatrick, of Solihull, West Midlands, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harm HLS from 2005 to 2008 under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 by interfering with companies supplying them.

The maximum jail term for conspiracy to blackmail is 14 years and for conspiracy under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 it is five years.

Recorder of Winchester Judge Keith Cutler, said the well-planned and relentless campaign had been "synonymous with intimidation, violence and terror".

"The action was taken in order to distress and terrify, and in that you were successful," he told them.

He said that the lawful activities of Shac were a "thin veneer" and it was a vehicle for intimidation even though he accepted the six had a passionate opposition to animal research laboratories and had "fiercely held beliefs".

He then quoted Mr Justice Butterfield, who jailed other members of the conspiracy, when he said: "I expect you will be seen by some as martyrs for a noble cause but that would be wholly misplaced. You are not going to prison for expressing your beliefs, you are going to prison because you have committed a serious criminal offence."

Jailing Whitehead, who was called "Mumsy" by the others, for six years, Judge Cutler said she led the younger members on and corrupted them.