Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty - Convictions and Legislation

Convictions and Legislation

Several companies targeted by SHAC in the UK obtained injunctions. These include HLS itself, Chiron UK, Phytopharm, Daiichi UK, Asahi Glass, Eisai, Yamanouchi Pharma, Sankyo Pharma, and BOC. The injunctions compelled SHAC to print the injunction on their website, so that SHAC's action targets were juxtaposed with a legal notification that there was a 50-yard exclusion zone around the homes of employees and places of business. Protest outside HLS itself was allowed to occur one day a week with a police presence. HLS tried but failed in June 2004 to obtain a permanent injunction against SHAC. SHAC's argument against the enforceability of such injunctions was that, despite having hundreds of supporters, a website, mailing address, telephone information hotline, mailing list, and bank account, it does not exist as a corporate or charitable body, and therefore cannot prevent its supporters from taking action against HLS.

SHAC's campaign prompted the introduction of sections 145–149 of the British Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which created new offences intended to protect animal-testing facilities, including prohibiting acts or threats intended to cause someone to terminate or not enter into a contract with such a facility. The first person to be convicted under the Act was Joseph Harris, a doctor of molecular biology, who attacked property owned by companies supplying materials to HLS; he received a three-year sentence. In February 2007, a number of SHAC supporters were charged with illegal street collecting without a licence. According to the Metropolitan Police, two stalls in London's Oxford Street collected over £80,000 a year. In March 2007, three activists were jailed under the Act for intimidating HLS suppliers; one supplier dropped its contract with HLS after being invaded by demonstrators wearing skull masks.