Animal Rights Activists Convicted

Four animal rights activists have been found guilty of conducting a hate campaign against businesses who supplied products to the animal testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences.

The quartet was part of the group ‘Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’, otherwise known as SHAC. The group participated in direct action which included sending used sanitary towels, syringes which they claimed to have been used by HIV sufferers, and used condoms through the post. Other aggressive tactics included smear campaigns accusing people associated with Huntingdon of being paedophiles, and daubing graffiti containing slogans such as ‘puppy killer’ outside the homes of those who supplied products to Huntingdon Life Sciences.

The four SHAC members, Heather Nicholson, aged 41, from Hampshire; Gerrah Selby, aged 20, from London; Daniel Wadham aged 21, also from London, and Gavin Medd-Hall, aged 45, from Croydon, were today found guilty of conspiracy to blackmail. Speaking on BBC News 24, a SHAC spokesperson claimed that the conviction demonstrates a lack of democracy and freedom in the UK and that the Labour party has failed in its promise to conduct an independent inquiry into the ethics of vivisection, whereas Detective Chief Inspector Andy Robbins said "This conspiracy to blackmail involved the systematic and relentless intimidation of individuals and their companies who the defendants suspected them to be involved with HLS."

Guidelines regarding the use of animals as test subjects in the UK remain some of the strictest in the world.