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Guinea pig supplier wins case
Oct 15 2003
By Neil Connor, Birmingham Post
A Staffordshire farm supplying guinea pigs to a company which tests drugs on live animals may have won a decisive battle against animal rights activists following a High Court ruling.
Campaigners could be banned from protesting outside Darley Oaks Farm, in Newchurch, after an order preventing demonstrations outside Huntingdon Life Sciences was extended.
Huntingdon is a customer of Darley Oaks Farm and High Court judge Mr Justice Owen ruled that temporary exclusion orders under the Protection from Harassment Act would also protect the suppliers of the Cambridgeshire-based firm.
The Darley Oaks Farm, which is owned by the Hall family, has been targeted by several homemade bombs in the last few years because of its links with Huntingdon.
Electricity supplies to the farms local area have also been cut on four occasions by animal extremists.
The judges orders mean protesters will not be able to go within 100 yards of the offices of suppliers to Huntingdon except for peaceful protests of no more than 12 activists once a week.
Directors and employees had been subjected to harassment of a very serious nature intended to intimidate and terrify, the judge said.
Huntingdon won similar orders in June which banned members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac) from approaching the drugs-testing companys headquarters and the homes of its employees.
Activists say they will challenge the ban, which uses a law designed to protect the victims of stalkers.
