Attack on GM wheat trial was ‘an act of vandalism’

Hector Christie, 50, from Instow, Devon, has been charged with criminal damage after “significant, random property damage” was inflicted on the Rothamsted Research centre in Hertfordshire, where scientists are trying to produce a wheat crop that repels damaging aphids.

If successful it would radically reduce the need for pesticides.

Christie, understood to work as a farmer himself, was a pupil at Eton and is the son of Sir George Christie, the head of the Glyndebourne opera family.

He will appear at St Albans Central Magistrates’ Court on July 13, Hertfordshire Police said.

A spokesman for Rothamsted said that the break-in had not disrupted the experiments but Toby Bruce, a researcher at Rothamsted, said on Twitter that the person responsible for vandalism had “cut off the tops of quite a few of the plants and collected the material”.

Professor Douglas Kell, chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, said: “We strongly support the right of our funded scientists to carry out approved and regulated trials and we fully support the action of the police which prevented further science losses.

“We understand that some people do not agree with this research and we encourage our funded scientists to engage with a range of views around their work. People have the right to make their views known but we deplore those that turn to criminal damage.”

A planned protest by Anti-GM campaigning group Take the Flour Back at Rothamsted’s headquarters this weekend is still scheduled to take place.

East of England MEP Stuart Agnew said it was “vital” the crop was allowed to be properly assessed and called upon protesters to take up an offer of dialogue with the scientists.

Rothamsted director Maurice Moloney said: “This act of vandalism has attempted to deny us all the opportunity to gather knowledge and evidence, for current and future generations, on one possible technological alternative approach to get plants to defend themselves and therefore reduce pesticide use.”

Earlier this week, the National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall likened the vandalism to the book burnings carried out in Nazi Germany.