Towards the end of May 2006, animal rights activists discovered the secret location of the accommodation in the Cotswolds village used by builders working on the construction of Oxford University’s new £20 million laboratory in South Parks Road.  Speak, the group responsible for the Oxford University anti-vivisection protests, posted the address on the internet. The group had intended to demonstrate outside the men's quarters today. The demonstrations were already restricted at the building site by an injunction granted to the University. Furthermore, to prevent the activists from harassing the workers at their living quarters, the injunction had forbade anyone from following vehicles ferrying contractors to the site.  Now a High Court Judge has extended the injunction to cover the workers' living quarters. Although Speak says it uses only legal means[1] to protest against vivisection, there are concerns that high profile sympathisers such as Morrissey will encourage hard line activists to go beyond peaceful protest. However, Thames Valley Police seem unimpressed by such an argument.  They are reported to have said that they were not investigating the singer's comments because there was,

 "no reasonable prospect of getting anything out of it in terms of a conviction".

This limp response from the Police is unimpressive, not only because it is of dubious validity and will be seen as carte blanche by the protesters but also because as is so often the case, the Police forget that their brief is to not only to detect crime, but to deter it.  They can make their presence felt and show that they are not putting up with any harassment or intimidation against the workers by these “protesters”.

 

The root of the problem here is the Labour Government, who for too long appeased the Animal Rights movement.  The Police can be forgiven perhaps for not knowing whether it is politically correct to take a hard line against the harassment inflicted upon pro-vivisectionists.  After all, it was this Government that abandoned all principle and hammered the Hunting Act through Parliament to assuage its Class Warriors.  It was New Labour who accepted a total of £1.13 million in donations from the Political Animal Lobby between 1997 and 2001.  It has been only since the Prime Minister Mr Blair detected a change in the mood of the public concerning animal rights issues that he  has now opportunistically taken a tough stance in favour of animal testing, a mere two years after banning hunting with hounds. 

 

The animal rights movement have yet to realise that the weak public and political consensus in favour of “animal rights” has all but evaporated.  Apparently, so have the Thames Valley Police.

 

[1] Though to me, doggedly following a group of  building site workers and regularly directing a protest at them (even at a distance) looks like harassment, sounds like harassment and feels like harassment within the ambit of the Protection against Harassment Act 1997.