Animal rights jury out for fifth day

Dec 19 2008 By Matt McKenzie

The jury today began considering its verdict for a fifth day in the trial of five animal rights activists accused of blackmailing companies who supplied Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Trevor Holmes, 51, of Newcastle, Gerrah Selby, 20, Daniel Wadham, 21, Gavin Medd-Hall, 45, and Heather Nicholson, 41, are alleged to have orchestrated the campaign which ran between 2001 and 2007, Winchester Crown Court has heard.

The hierarchy of the group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) used threats such as claiming managers of the companies were paedophiles, hoax bombs parcels, criminal damage and threatening telephone calls to force them to cut links with the animal testing company, the trial was told.

The aim was to target suppliers or any company with a secondary link with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) based in Cambridge.

One of the features of intimidation included sending used sanitary towels in the post saying it was contaminated with the Aids virus and personal campaigns against the management of companies including daubing roads outside their homes with words like ``Puppy Killer", the trial heard.

The court heard Nicholson, from Eversley in Hampshire, was a founder member of SHAC who managed the ``menacing" campaigns against the firms who were named on the group’s website.

The alleged blackmail would only stop when they put out a ``capitulation statement" to SHAC saying they would not supply HLS, who conduct animal testing for the pharmaceutical industry, the court was told.

Medd-Hall, from Croydon, south London, was a computer and research expert high up in SHAC who uncovered company links with HLS, the court heard.

Wadham, from Bromley in Kent, joined SHAC in 2005 and was in regular attendance at demonstrations against the firms and HLS, the trial was told.

Selby, from Chiswick in London, also was a regular activist at demonstrations in the UK and Europe, including a violent demo in Paris, the court heard.

Holmes, from Newcastle upon Tyne, was a senior member of SHAC who took part in criminal damage in the UK, the court heard.

All five deny conspiracy to blackmail.

Three others members Gregg Avery, Natasha Avery and Daniel Amos have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail, the court heard.