30 August 2000

Straw Attacks Animal Activists

As Home Secretary Jack Straw began a tour of England and Wales to assess local crime strategies and promote police recruitment, he announced to the BBC that the government is considering whether to change the law to give the police more powers to stop animal rights extremists attacking people who work in research laboratories. The announcement comes following recent fire bomb attacks on the cars belonging to employees of stricken Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire. In the report on the BBC's Today progam, Mr Straw said: "The action they have been taking against employees and directors of life science companies has been absolutely preposterous. "It is terrible what has happened to some of those employees. These are law abiding people doing a job on behalf of the rest of us. "It is worth bearing in mind that many of us ourselves would not be able to lead healthy lives were it not for the pharmaceutical companies being able to test their drugs on animals." Mr Straw said the police wanted new powers to tackle the problem. "We are looking at whether there are changes in legislation that we can take which are being sought by the police to see whether we can strengthen action against these animal rights extremists," he said. Speaking in Tower Hamlets at the start of his Ministerial tour, the Home Secretary said: "Tackling crime and disorder is a top priority for the Government. "As a result, we are providing substantial extra resources and powers to the police and local partnerships to help them raise the game against crime at a local level." Over the next 3 weeks the Ministerial tour will move onto, Merthyr Tydfil, Hartlepool, Luton, Plymouth, Sandwell in the West Midlands, Sheffield, Nottingham, Brighton and ending on the 21st September in Manchester.