In 1999 the ALF liberated 600 guinea pigs from horrific conditions at a farm that bred guinea pigs for vivisection. After these conditions were brought to the attention of the animal rights movement The Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs Campaign was launched to shut down this farm once and for all.
The SNGP campaign ran a legal campaign of protest, holding demonstrations at the farm itself and outside the offices of the companies who supplied the farm with the services necessary for operation. Over the six years that this campaign ran, policing of the demonstrations became tighter and more oppressive. Many people were arrested for minor offences including tying up purple ribbon (which symbolized animal suffering) and displaying banners referring to animal abuse. Eventually the farm owners took out an injunction against the campaign.
Along side the SNGP campaign there was a series of actions relying on more hard hitting tactics against the farm owners, suppliers, customers and associates. This involved an unknown number of anonymous activists who were prepared to break the law to achieve the closure of this farm. These actions were carried out by anyone who took it upon themselves to do something and the style and severity of the actions ranged from minor criminal damage to arson of empty farm buildings. The farm owners finally decided to shut down after the removal of a family members’ body from a grave in October 2004. It is thought that whoever did this was using the body as a ransom to bargain the farms closure.
Though many including people within the animal rights movement were shocked and repulsed by the tactic it does seem to have been the successful blow that achieved the end. The farm has indeed shut down and the body has now been returned to the family.

It is unfortunate for everyone that people are driven to such lengths to prevent the inhumane treatment of sentient beings. But to gain any insight into why it happened it is necessary to imagine the depth of feeling and determination experienced by those people who have seen for themselves the horror that millions of animals are experiencing every day behind closed doors.
It is convenient therefore for the supporters of industries which trade in the lives of animals to keep the reality away from the public eye and to demonize and ridicule those who fight to save these animals, risking their own personal freedom.
The increasingly drachionian laws being introduced to prevent legal but persistent campaigns against animal abusers is also inevitably leading to more illegal direct action.

Three men were recently sentenced to 12years and a woman to four years for the determined campaign to close down Newchurch farm. All 4 prisoners entered a basis of plea that they were pleading guilty to blackmail (to persuade the farm to close via a series of illegal actions) but not to the desecration of the grave (an action included in the charge). The judge, who had clearly already made up his mind that he was going to give them as long as he could, ignored this basis of plea and punished them for every action connected with the campaign over the last 6 years. There was NO evidence that they were responsible for the grave desecration and they would have had to be bionic people to have been responsible for all of the hundreds of actions that resulted in the closure of the farm.

Likewise David Modell's sensationalist documentary "Mad about animals" featuring 2 of the prisoners, ignored some very intelligent arguments put forward by the activists. Instead the documentary solely relied upon any comments made, that without the necessary background information may have been seen as outrageous.
For the benefit of his own documentary Modell claimed they were "plotting" the grave robbery there and then, just out of reach of his microphones. What evidence does he have to make these claims?
Though he claims to have bonded with the activists he wasted no time in getting his slice of sensational pie, and at no time offered up facts that he himself witnessed. Including the fact that they stated in court that they were not guilty of the grave robbery.
Neither was he interested in showing the conditions inside the battery farm where he accompanied an activist who as Modell put it “rescued a few miserable chickens”.

None of the news reports that showed footage of the sheds at Newchurch housing thousands of healthy looking guinea pigs on fresh straw picked up on the fact that the owners of the farm admitted in court that the very different footage used in the SNGP campaign video was in fact shot inside their sheds. A fact they had denied when the footage had been sent to the media by the ALF just after the liberation of 600 guinea pigs in 1999. This footage showed no bedding, only a filthy floor upon which lay numerous injured and dying, some half eaten and still alive baby guinea pigs. Conditions which we are assured the Home office inspectors would not tolerate. In fact 60% of these guinea pigs were bought by the government.
The fact is that it is only when animal rights activists inspect these places that these conditions and abuses come to light.

Before Labours’ election they lobbied for the “animal lovers” vote with their leaflet “New life for animals.” Amongst other broken promises was the Royal Commission to see if animal experiments have any scientific value for human health. We are still waiting, so are the animals who are suffering for nothing and so are the people who are relying on these “scientists” for proper cures. Often for man made illnesses caused by the toxins we consume in our daily lives that have been passed safe in animal experiments themselves.
No vivisector or animal breeder has ever been convicted for breaching the Animal (Scientific) Procedures Act 1986 though many serious breaches have been recorded.
The judge, who sentenced the four Newchurch activists, said he was using them as an example to anyone else who may think of taking the law into their own hands.
And while Tony Blaire drums up public support for vivisection (one of the governments biggest earners), new laws are clamping down on legitimate protest. Gagging orders silence national campaign groups from distributing factual information about breaches of the laws meant to “protect” animals in laboratories. And animal rights activists get increasingly heavy sentences for doing exactly what they said they would do, shutting animal abusers down.