U.K. animal-rights 'terrorists' block raising of guinea pigs

Associated Press
August 24, 2005

LONDON (AP) -- A British farm harassed by animal rights extremists will cease raising guinea pigs for medical experiments, the family run business said Tuesday.

David Hall and Partners said it would shut down its guinea pig breeding operations in Yoxall in northwestern England.

The family says it has suffered hate mail, malicious phone calls, hoax bombs and arson attacks for several years. It also believes animal rights extremists were responsible for desecrating a churchyard grave and stealing the body of a relative of one of the farm's owners.

The family said it hoped the decision to stop raising the animals would lead to the return of the body of Gladys Hammond, 82, the mother-in-law of Christopher Hall, who co-owns Darley Oaks Farm with his brother John. Her remains were stolen from a grave at St. Peter's Church last year.

Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, a lawyer who acted for the Hall family during a court bid to secure a 200-square-kilometre exclusion zone around the farm, said the court had rightly classified the extremists' campaign as terrorism.

"It seems clear that the Halls' decision to give up the breeding of guinea pigs for medical research is the result of a guerrilla campaign of terrorism which has been directed against them and everyone connected to them," he said.

A spokesman for Stop the Newchurch Guinea Pigs, who gave his name only as Johnny, said the decision was "a victory for the animals and it's a fundamental victory for the animal rights movement."