Mel Brown [1] (born Mel Broughton; 5 July 1960) is a British landscape gardener and animal rights activist who rose to public prominence due to a planned bombing campaign aimed at preventing the construction of a new research laboratory at Oxford University. [2] He was the co-founder in 2004, with Robert Cogswell, of SPEAK, The Voice for the Animals, a campaign to stop animal testing in Britain, which is focused on opposition to a new animal laboratory at Oxford University. [3]
Broughton was sentenced to four years in 1998 after police found a firebomb in his car. [4] He was arrested again and remanded in custody in December 2007 after the Animal Liberation Front planted incendiary devices in Oxford University colleges. A jury cleared him of possessing explosive substances, but failed to reach a verdict on other charges. Following his retrial in 2009 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit arson. [5] However, in March 2010 Mel Broughton had his conviction overturned, arguing that the DNA evidence in the case had been unreliable. [6] He was later granted bail with "stringent conditions" and was re-tried in June/July 2010. [7] [8] On 13 July 2010 Broughton was once again found guilty and returned to prison to complete the balance of his sentence.
On his release, he continued his campaigns, and in September 2020 was seriously injured when trampled by a horse while protesting a Northamptonshire hunt. [9]
Broughton's father is a former painter and decorator and his mother, Pauline, a care assistant in an old people's home. Both are committed animal rights advocates who work alongside Broughton on the SPEAK campaign. [10] His mother, 70 years old at the time, was injured in September 2004 when a construction worker at Oxford University threw a white burning substance at her during an animal rights demonstration. [11]
Broughton has been involved in animal rights for over 30 years. He worked on Operation Osprey in Scotland when he was 15, living in a tent to guard osprey nests. He later worked in animal sanctuaries, and campaigned against zoos, circuses, factory farming, and live animal exports. [10]
He lives in Northampton with Bella, a rescue dog, devoting most of his time to SPEAK. He told The Independent on Sunday:
This was always my life, but now it takes up so much of my life that it's very difficult. In fact survival is very, very hard. My flat's nothing special – two rooms – and I live as frugally as I possibly can to make sure I can campaign. I'm not trying to make myself out to be a martyr because this is my choice. [10]
Broughton was first arrested in 1988, when he and three other activists, including Barry Horne – who died in 2001 during an animal-rights hunger strike – tried to remove Rocky, a bottlenose dolphin, from a small concrete pool inside Marineland, in Morecambe, Lancashire. Rocky had been in the pool, mostly alone, for 17 years, after being captured off the coast of Florida in 1971.
Broughton and the others intended to move the dolphin, who weighed 650 lbs, 200 yards from the pool to the sea, using a ladder, a net, a home-made dolphin stretcher, and a hired Mini Metro. [12] [13] On the night of the action, they realised the logistics of the operation were beyond them, and decided to abandon their plans, but were arrested when the police found them with the dolphin stretcher in the back of the car. Broughton, Horne, Jim O'Donnell, and Jim Buckner were fined £500, while Broughton and Horne were also given six-month suspended sentences. [14]
The management of Marineland eventually agreed to give Rocky to campaigners in response to Broughton and others picketing the facility. In 1991, Rocky was transferred to a lagoon reserve in the Turks and Caicos Islands, then released. [15] Peter Hughes of the University of Sunderland cites the campaign as an example of how promoting an animal rights perspective created a paradigm shift toward seeing dolphins as individuals, as a result of which, he wrote, there are now no captive dolphins in the UK. [16]
Broughton was first jailed in 1999 after police found a bomb in the boot of his car. [17] He was convicted of conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life. He was sentenced to four years, and released in June 2002 after serving two years and eight months. [10]
Broughton told The Independent on Sunday that he took the chance to educate himself while in prison, studying philosophy and social sciences with the Open University. "I found a lot of sympathy inside," he told the newspaper, "but a lot of the general prisoners found it very difficult to understand that I was inside for something I'd done for no personal gain." [10]
In July 2003, Broughton and Robert Cogswell set up a campaign to halt construction of a new non-human primate research facility at Cambridge University, the plans for which suggested it would be Europe's largest primate vivisection centre. The Stop Primate Experiments at Cambridge (SPEAC) campaign succeeded in persuading the university to abandon its plans in January 2004. [18]
Shortly thereafter, SPEAC learned that Oxford University planned to build a new animal research laboratory, including a non-human primate lab, in the university's science area. The activists said that talks between Oxford and Cambridge had resulted in Oxford agreeing to conduct the brain experiments that were lost with the abandonment of Cambridge's plans. [19] SPEAC became SPEAK, The Voice for the Animals, relaunching itself as a campaign to halt all animal testing in the UK, with its second target the new Oxford lab, which opened in November 2008. [20]
In connection with his role in the SPEAK campaign, Broughton was charged in December 2007 with conspiracy to blackmail and possession of incendiary devices after fire broke out inside a sports pavilion belonging to Queen's College, Oxford in November 2006, and two petrol bombs were found inside the university's Templeton College in February 2007. [21] [22] The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the attacks. [23] [24]
Police arrested Broughton after finding a university employee's security pass and a notebook containing a list of targets for "direct action" under a carpet, and sparklers and a battery connector in an unused water tank at his house. The prosecution alleged that Broughton's DNA matched a sample found on the fuse on one of the petrol bombs. [17]
Transcripts were submitted to the court during Broughton's trial of a recording in which Oxford police discussed a "dirty war" against Broughton, and how they were going to "get him." Broughton told the court that he was under constant police surveillance. [25]
The jury was discharged in November 2008 after clearing Broughton of keeping an explosive substance with intent, but failing to reach verdicts on the other charges. Broughton was remanded in custody until his retrial in February 2009, whereupon he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson and sentenced to ten years by Oxford Crown Court. Judge Patrick Eccles QC accused Broughton of being part of a "ruthless conspiracy" against the Oxford Biomedical Facility. [5]
In March 2010, Mel Broughton had his conviction overturned due to the 'unsafe' way in which the trial judge summed up the conviction, with Broughton arguing the DNA evidence in the case had been unreliable. [6] He was later granted bail on "stringent conditions" that he does not engage in animal rights activities and enter Oxfordshire. He was re-tried in June 2010. [7] [26] On 13 July 2010 he was found guilty at the retrial, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. [27]
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo, which later sold off the CRO part.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.
Barry Horne was an English animal rights activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing, something the Labour Party had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.
Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) was a six-year campaign by British animal rights activists to close a farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire that bred guinea pigs for animal research. The owners, three brothers trading as David Hall and Partners, announced in August 2005 that they were closing the business as a result of the pressure from activists, which included harassment, damage to property, and threats of physical violence.
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and direct action activist who acted as a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and was alleged by police in 2005 to be a ringleader for the ALF. He was imprisoned twice, and is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement (2007).
The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human life.
The Justice Department (JD) was founded in the United Kingdom by animal rights activists who declared they were willing to use a diversity of tactics up to and including violence against their opponents. Initially calling for "abusers to have but a taste of the fear and anguish their victims suffer on a daily basis", activists established a separate idea from adhering to the Animal Liberation Front's (ALF) guidelines of non-violent resistance, similar to that of the Animal Rights Militia (ARM).
SPEAK is a British animal rights group working to end animal testing in the UK.
Animal Liberation Leagues were a network of animal rights organizations active in the UK in the 1980s. Whereas the Animal Liberation Front specialized in clandestine activity, mainly masked, at night, and involving small numbers of people, the Animal Liberation Leagues consisted of coordinated raids, or 'invasions', by a large number of people, mainly carried out during the day. One journalist described the Animal Liberation Leagues as "a sophisticated...development in the move to direct action". Raids were often carried out at the same time as legal demonstrations.
Pro-Test was a British group that promoted and supported animal testing in medical research. It was founded on 29 January 2006 to counter SPEAK, an animal-rights campaign opposing the construction by Oxford University of a biomedical and animal-research facility, which SPEAK believes may include a primate-testing centre. Pro-Test held its first rally on 25 February 2006, attracting hundreds in support of the research facility and opposed by a smaller number of anti-lab demonstrators.
Nicolas Atwood is an American animal rights activist based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He maintains the Malaysia-registered Bite Back direct-action website, which is associated with the Animal Liberation Front.
Darren Todd Thurston is a Canadian former animal rights activist.
In the United Kingdom, a series of seven letter bombs were sent during January and February 2007 to various companies and agencies, all related in some way to DNA testing and road transport. Police said that some of the letters were hand written and some typed. All seven letter bombs were sent in A5 Jiffy-style envelopes. On 19 February 2007, Miles Cooper was arrested, and appeared in court on 23 February charged with 12 offences relating to the case. On 27 September, he was found guilty of all 12 charges.
This timeline of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions describes the history, consequences and theory of direct action on behalf of animals by animal liberation activists using, or associated with the ALF.
The University of Minnesota runs a number of studies involving non-human primates, most notably research into drug addiction. The studies have attracted the attention of local and national animal rights groups, most especially the drug addiction studies of Marilyn Carroll, which she performs on primates, rats, and mice.
Save the Hill Grove Cats was a British animal rights campaign set up in 1997 with the aim of closing Hill Grove Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire. The farm, owned by Christopher Brown, was the last commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in the United Kingdom. Eight hundred cats were removed by the RSPCA on August 10, 1999, when Brown announced his decision to retire after a controversial two-year campaign.
The Western Animal Rights Network (WARN) first appeared in 2005 as a coalition for animal rights groups in the West of England and South Wales and acted as a news service for animal rights demos and action reports.
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that advocates and engages in what it calls non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in the 1970s from the Bands of Mercy. Participants state it is a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses, veterinary care and operating sanctuaries where the animals subsequently live. Critics have labelled them as eco-terrorists.
Heather Nicholson is a British animal rights activist.
The campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm, also known as the Close Highgate Farm campaign, is a series of direct actions by anti-vivisection activists. Highgate Rabbit Farm in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire in England is licensed by the Home Office to breed rabbits and ferrets for animal-testing facilities, including Huntingdon Life Sciences. Actions have included a raid by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and an arson claimed by the Militant Forces Against HLS. The ALF raid in 2008 saw 129 rabbits removed and £100,000-worth of damage to property. The campaign has been linked to activists involved in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).
