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Partial win for guinea pig farm owners
Jan 18 2005
By Staff Reporter, Birmingham Post
The beleaguered owners of a farm, which breeds guinea pigs for medical research, have reached a partial agreement in their High Court battle with animal- rights activists.
But villagers, living near Darley Oaks Farm at Newchurch, Staffordshire, still faced an uphill struggle in their attempt to secure a wide no-go area - up to 200 square kilometres (77 square miles) - around their parishes.
A judge, in London, heard some of the defendants named in the action brought by the farm owners, brothers Christopher and John Hall, had agreed to their protests outside the farm entrance being limited in time, frequency and the number of demonstrators.
But an application by local parish councillor Peter Clamp for the right to represent people living in the parishes of Newborough and Yoxall, and the suppliers and contractors of Darley Oaks Farm over a much wider area, was disputed.
Six weeks' ago, a High Court judge granted a limited, temporary injunction banning protesters from going within 100 metres of the farm for the purpose of limited, peaceful demonstrations.
Lawyers for the Hall brothers and their families, friends employees and tenants had argued that they needed immediate protection.
Solicitor-advocate Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden cited recent "very sinister criminal events", including the theft of the body of Christopher Hall's late mother-in-law, Gladys Hammond, from her churchyard. But the court ruled at that hearing that, although the effect on the Hall family and their business had been devastating, it would be " unwise" to make a wide-ranging interim order.
The court also banned named campaigners and animal-rights organisations from going within 250 metres of premises occupied by the Halls' employees and their suppliers and contractors.
Yesterday's case, heard in London by Mr Justice Owen, was brought against various individuals and organisations including the Animal Liberation Front.
