Blunkett to crack down on animal rights extremism

Friday, 30 July 2004 12:00 AM

The Government is today to unveil plans to prevent animal rights activists from harassing scientists and other people involved in animal experimentation.

The move comes following widespread complaints from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which claim that the UK's international competitiveness is being compromised by intimidation and the rising cost of ensuring security, which is estimated at an additional £1 billion per annum.

The plans, due to be announced today by Home Secretary David Blunkett, were trailed earlier this week. On Wednesday, Mr Blunkett declared, "I want to make clear that this is the time for people to join together for a concerted effort to stop this once and for all, rather than the tendency for all agencies to start passing the buck and blaming each other."

It is expected that the Government will seek to make demonstrating outside the homes of people involved in experimentation a specific criminal offence. Many companies have secured civil injunctions preventing protests outside their premises, but these do not extend to the private homes of staff.

In addition, it is anticipated that the Government will extend anti-stalking laws to enable whole groups of employees to be protected, rather than just named individuals, as at present.

While new primary legislation is thought to be unnecessary to put the planned provisions into practice, the Government will have to amend the existing law, specifically the Criminal Justice Act 2001.

Furthermore, specialist prosecutors are to be appointed in each police force area to help co-ordinate efforts.

In recent years, the tactics of animal rights campaigners have made life difficult for many companies involved in vivisection. The Bank of England now acts as the banker to Huntingdon Life Sciences, following the refusal of all other financial institutions to be associated with the controversial Cambridgeshire firm, while building companies Montpellier and RMC pulled out of the construction of a new research laboratory in Oxford over concern about protests.

The Government's plans were welcomed by the Conservatives, but Home Affairs spokesman David Davis warned that "simply introducing new powers won't tackle the problem on its own."

He argued, "They need to be more vigorously enforced, and the CPS and the police must cooperate to ensure people responsible for this behaviour are brought before the courts and dealt with."

Mel Broughton, spokesman for animal rights organisation SPEAK, told the BBC that the proposals were a "knee-jerk reaction".

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