SHAC Animal Rights Activists Found Guilty of Blackmail, Intimidation, Hoaxes etc.
From the BBC (whole report reproduced):
Four animal rights activists have been convicted of orchestrating a blackmail campaign against firms that supplied an animal testing research centre.
The group used threats, criminal damage and bomb hoaxes to intimidate firms associated with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) based in Cambridge.
The four, members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty from Hampshire and London, had denied the charges.
A fifth defendant was cleared by the Winchester Crown Court jury.
During the six-year campaign the group falsely claimed managers of the companies were paedophiles, sent hoax bombs parcels, and made threatening telephone calls to firms telling them to cut links with HLS.
One of the features of intimidation included sending used sanitary items in the post to the firms and daubing roads outside managers’ homes with words like “puppy killer”.
Heather Nicholson, 41, of Eversley, Hampshire; Gerrah Selby, 20, of Chiswick, London; Daniel Wadham, 21, of Bromley, south London, and Gavin Medd-Hall, 45, of Croydon, south London, were all found guilty of conspiracy to blackmail.
Another man, Trevor Holmes, 51, from Newcastle, was cleared.
Earlier, three others, Gregg Avery and Natasha Avery, both of Hampshire, and Daniel Amos, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail.
The court heard the defendants were part of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), which was based near Hook, Hampshire, and targeted companies in the UK and Europe between 2001 and 2007.
The court heard Nicholson, from Eversley in Hampshire, was a founder member of SHAC, which managed the “menacing” campaigns against the firms.
Selby, Wadham and Medd-Hall were released on conditional bail, while Nicholson was remanded in custody.
The verdict on Tuesday came after seven days of deliberation.
One of the jurors refused to be seen in court while the verdict was announced.
Det Ch Insp Andy Robbins, of Kent Police, told the BBC: “We are very satisfied with the outcome of this prosecution.
“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.
“There was a whole group of tactics used by SHAC and I would like to pay tribute to the many victims who have had to carry on their lawful business while living through this criminal campaign.
“The public should also be aware that money donated to SHAC in good faith was in fact being used to finance criminal conduct.
“SHAC and the ALF are one of the same, there is no club, no rules of membership.”
Sentencing will take place on 19 January.
Good.
The moral universe where actions against people involving threats and violence against by the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) group against proper medical research is a perverted one, and we need to continue to move along the road towards its repudiation.
Properly regulated and controlled animal testing is both right and appropriate, and needs to be simply supported.
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Can I suggest you at least look at the website and spend a mere five minutes of your life to read part of just one report on the reality of what animal testing achieves and doesn’t achieve before you spread your commentary.
My aim is not to convert you to Anything - just to implore you to consider more so please read on.
A scenario: if there were thousands of refugees undergoing horrific and nearly always fatal testing (however closely regulated - as in the holocaust in fact), would you not break down the gates to free them yourself even if it meant having to push some guards out of the way? Now imagine that these SHAC campaigners you’ve just rejoiced for being incarcerated don’t differentiate between humans and Other animals. Because they don’t, and although they maybe shouldn’t have pushed those guards aside, at least they had a noble intention whether you agree with it or not. Empathise with that, even if you don’t sympathise with it.
Thank you for reading this, if you did.
Ian Taylor´s last blog post..The scientific case against animal experiments
Ian
Thank-you for your thoughtful comment. Yes, I do read all comments. Let me answer in two parts: whether animal testing is justified, and the conduct of those opposing it.
>Can I suggest you at least look at the website and spend a mere five minutes of your life to read part of just one report on the reality of what animal testing achieves and doesn’t achieve before you spread your commentary.
>My aim is not to convert you to Anything - just to implore you to consider more so please read on.
Thank-you for your approach here. I’m afraid my reply may disappoint you.
I have done considerably more than “spend 5 minutes reading” and I am convinced that animal testing - properly regulated - is justified, necessary and morally right for medical research. Without making a long argument, I support the idea that use of animals to further human progress is justifiable where a viable alternative does not exist.
Clearly testing should be minimised, but the principle of freedom to test cannot, in my view, be compromised.
>A scenario: if there were thousands of refugees undergoing horrific and nearly always fatal testing (however closely regulated - as in the holocaust in fact), would you not break down the gates to free them yourself even if it meant having to push some guards out of the way?
>Now imagine that these SHAC campaigners you’ve just rejoiced for being incarcerated don’t differentiate between humans and Other animals.
That I think illustrates the difference - I do not accept an equivalence between humans and other animals, and I think that the move by those who do so from (1) advocacy to (2)direct action then to (3) violence / threats of violence requires a strong response from society.
In the case of research on humans of course that would be the appropriate response, but I don’t share that belief in human/animal equivalence.
>although they maybe shouldn’t have pushed those guards aside,
To be honest, I think that saying “pushing guards aside” is a whitewash. They were not imprisoned for several years for “pushing guards aside”, which would come under the normal push and shove of demonstrations (1 or 2 as I have labelled them above).
Rather they were imprisoned (among other things) for terrorising families, children and communities as a tactic to put pressure on individuals going about their lawful business. Any claims by these individuals to be straightforward “protesters” are lies.
The SHAC/ALF activists do not sit alongside people camping in trees protesting peacefully to prevent a road being built, they sit alongside terrorist groups such as the IRA/UDA and gangsters/drug smugglers using threats of violence to intimidate communities. Those were the methods used and the comparison is completely valid. Even if their cause was “right” (which I don’t accept) then the methods used justify their imprisonment. After all, they were not imprisoned for being animal rights activists, they were imprisoned for (among other things):
* claiming managers of the companies were paedophiles,
* sending hoax bombs parcels,
* making threatening telephone calls
* sending sanitary items in the post to firms claiming they were contaminated with AIDS.
* explicitly threatening violence against spouses and children of targeted individuals.
I cannot empathise because claims to support an “equivalence between animals and human beings” and “protecting victims of research” do not square with a willingness to hurt people at random in pursuit of their goals. I chose my words quite carefully: when I said “perverted moral universe”, I meant it.
Also, don’t forget that Gregg Avery, Natasha Avery, and Daniel Amos pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail.
I’ll post your comment and my reply to the front page to see if there are others interested in a debate.
Matt Wardman´s last blog post..Social Media Penetration in European and Asian Countries
[...] Just before Christmas I posted on the SHAC Animal Rights Activists who had been found guilty of blackmail and other crimes. [...]
In principle I totally agree with you Matt, it’s a necessary evil, would be great if we could do it another way but we cannot.
I’m curious though, in what way do you think there is no equivalence between aniimals and us. What makes us not an animal?? This is a very serious question because I honestly cannot see what makes us ‘better’ than any other creature…
That’s going to need a longish response Zorro, so I may post an article and drop a link here. Watch this space.
Matt Wardman´s last blog post..Ivan Cameron