Farmer's fear over protesters' attacks

By [bbanks]

Officers from five police forces converged on a Lincolnshire farm where hundreds of animal rights protesters staged a demonstration.

Placards emblazoned with 'vivisection is vile' and 'does money justify murder' were brandished by many of the 400 campaigners descending on Normanby by Spital near Market Rasen.

The message was directed at Geoff Douglas, the owner of Highgate Farm, which supplies rabbits to controversial Huntingdon Life Sciences's labs in Cambridgeshire.

Animal rights campaigners say this is where they 'suffer and die in cruel, useless experiments'.

And on Saturday campaigners from across the UK joined the demonstration organised by the high -profile Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty.

While activists from the group have previously been convicted of affray and inciting violence and terror, there were no arrests made.

However, a 33-year-old protester from the West Midlands, who asked remain anonymous, said this would be the first of many demonstrations at the farm.

"You're not going to get all these people today and then they're going to go away and forget about it," she said.

More than 100 officers were deployed to the demonstration from Nottinghamshire, Humberside, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire forces.

Spokesman for Lincolnshire Police, Dick Holmes said: "We have invested a great deal of time and effort in planning an appropriate balanced response and policing the event in an impartial way."

For more on the protest, see Monday's Echo.