Full extent of lab threats revealed
The lab is secured by razor wire, anti-climb paint, CCTV cameras and laser detection systems
Contractors working on the new animal labs on South Parks Road have been stalked and spied on by animal rights activists, it has emerged. The Oxford Student has learnt that on thirteen separate incidents in the past five months, intimidation of individuals has been reported. Workers on site have been approached and harassed for details of the companies they work for, and a number of contractors have been pursued at night and photographed by activists in order to reveal their identities.
In one case in January, police intercepted a known activist who had stalked a contractor in a car for four miles. The revelations came in a written witness statement to the High Court of Justice, seen by this newspaper, during the hearing of an application by Oxford University for an extension to their existing injunction against animal rights protesters.
The contract manager for Oxford University, said, “It is clear that animal rights activists are taking considerable steps to find out who the contractors are and I fear that if and when they do so a massive campaign of criminal damage may be directed at them.” The contract manager said that all firms and suppliers were already working in fear of being identified.
Firms who had been identified by activists had all suffered a campaign of intimidation, Mr Justice Holland, presiding judge, was told. Property belonging to Oxford Architects was vandalised, and the director of Monarch Freight was targeted at his home by extremists. In February, SPEAK, an animal rights group opposing the Oxford labs, published on its website details of a company which supplied a crane to the lab site.
The court was told that within the animal rights activists who were protesting against the animals labs was a hardcore terrorist core. Charles Flint QC, lawyer for the University, said, “There can be no dispute whatsoever that the ALF is a criminal and terrorist organisation and there are persons unknown who have taken action in the name of the ALF against the university.
Lawyers for the University said that the statement by Robin Webb, spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front and a defendant in the case, that student accommodation was a justifiable target for action was a “clear threat” against students. In 1998 Webb was caught on camera showing an undercover journalist how to build a bomb. Flint said, “The evidence presents an overwhelming picture of real distress, alarm and harassment.
The High Court will today rule on the University’s request for an extension to the existing injunction. Representatives of the University argued that the increasingly extreme actions of activists necessitated harsher restrictions on protest. The University is aiming to extend the exclusion zone to cover an area of four square miles around the site of the £20million research labs, which will include all of South Parks Road, Mansfield Road and St Cross Road.
The University’s restrictions have angered groups opposed to the lab. John Curtin, animal rights protester, said in court, “The full weight of the law is being used against us. This whole campaign is to stop people from standing outside that site with banners. That is what they don’t want.”
Lab contractors quit over fears of harassment
Two contractors have pulled out of work for the University due to fears of becoming a target for animal rights extremists. A steel company, who The Oxford Student has decided not to name for security reasons, has withdrawn from the tendering process. In a letter to the University the company explained that they had pulled out so they could “sleep easily at night”.
The letter went on to explain that workers and shareholders feared intimidation by a “well-organised and devious group of people who will stop at nothing to register their misguided opinions by harassment towards people and damage to property”. The decision “has not been taken lightly”, the company wrote. Recent events had “led to discussion at board level culminating in consensus to withdraw” The Oxford Student has also learnt that a second contractor has also withdrawn this week.
Lawyers for the University said that the company also cited pressure from animal rights activists. The steel company said it took the decision to withdraw from work for the new research laboratories after animal rights activists targeted shareholders in the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. They also cited the case of the desecration of the grave of an old woman whose family ran a guinea pig farm in Staffordshire.
The two compnies are not the first to pull out due to concerns over harassment by animal rights groups. At least four contractors have already withdrawn their services within the past year. Work on the lab was halted in June 2004 when Montpellier, a building firm working on the new laboratory, pulled out amid claims of intimidation by animal rights extremists. A University spokesperson refused to comment on the latest withdrawals.
25th May 2006
