Beagle breeding protesters arrested in Cambridgeshire

Fifteen people have been arrested in the past two months while demonstrating outside a facility that breeds dogs for laboratory research, police said.

Animal rights protesters have set up "Camp Beagle" at MBR Acres in Wyton, Cambridgeshire.

The firm has been granted a court order amid claims staff were being harassed by "vicious" campaigners.

Activists said those claims were false and their protest was focused on saving the beagles.

The US-based firm, whose full name is Marshall BioResources, gained an interim order from the High Court on 20 August to allow police to remove protesters from the site.

Free The MBR Beagles campaigners said they would stay there until it was forced to close.

Cambridgeshire Police has been escorting workers when they leave the site, but protestors have argued that police tactics have become more heavy-handed.

An MBR statement said: "We should stress that we have no interest in stifling legitimate protest provided it is conducted lawfully and peacefully, but we absolutely are concerned to stop those protesters who were conducting a vicious and unwarranted harassment and intimidation of our staff and others.

"Those protesters are now barred by the court from their campaign of harassment, trespass and criminal damage directed against our staff, contractors, and visitors.

"We will continue to run our operations in full compliance with Home Office regulations and with our normal high welfare standards.

"We remain proud of what we do every day because our work allows the progress of medicine to save millions of human and animal lives."

The spokesman for the Free The MBR Beagles group is Mel Brown. He was previously known as Mel Broughton and was jailed in 2009 for 10 years after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson.

He fire-bombed two Oxford University colleges over plans to build an animal research laboratory.

Brown said he had changed his name to "try to distance myself from my earlier conviction and because the new campaign is so radically different".

On his latest campaign, he said: "[It] has always been focused on gaining public support to save the beagles and not on causing fear to those employed by MBR."

Cambridgeshire Police spokesman said its response had been "impartial and proportionate".

"We are ensuring a safe environment for protesters to express their views peacefully and staff at the site to do their work, which is protected under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005," he said.

The force said the majority of the 15 arrests were for suspected obstruction of the highway or of criminal damage.

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Story updated on 8 September 2021 to reflect Mel Brown's previous conviction for conspiracy to commit arson.