The Power of Protest is Under Attack
The SHAC Justice Project are seven former animal rights prisoners wrongfully convicted in a politically motivated miscarriage of justice.
We have been working on an appeal for almost a decade, but in light of the impending Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill we are making our case public, in fear that history will repeat itself.
When we organised lawful protests against the exploitation and suffering of beagles and other animals inside Europe’s largest animal testing laboratory, we had no idea that it would lead to new legislation, media smears, or labels of ‘terrorism’. We certainly did not expect to be rounded up for a conspiracy we played no part in and sentenced to years in prison.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) have already been added to extremist watch lists. Their nonviolent protests have been branded ‘hooliganism and thuggery’ and an ‘attack on democracy’. How long before the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is used to round up and imprison key organisers and shut down campaigns?
The Power of Protest is Under Attack
The SHAC Justice Project are seven former animal rights prisoners wrongfully convicted in a politically motivated miscarriage of justice.
We have been working on an appeal for almost a decade, but in light of the impending Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill we are making our case public, in fear that history will repeat itself.
When we organised lawful protests against the exploitation and suffering of beagles and other animals inside Europe’s largest animal testing laboratory, we had no idea that it would lead to new legislation, media smears, or labels of ‘terrorism’. We certainly did not expect to be rounded up for a conspiracy we played no part in and sentenced to years in prison.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) have already been added to extremist watch lists. Their nonviolent protests have been branded ‘hooliganism and thuggery’ and an ‘attack on democracy’. How long before the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is used to round up and imprison key organisers and shut down campaigns?
Heather Nicholson
Sentenced to 11 years in prison for co-founding SHAC, organising and attending lawful protests, and attending a BBQ with friends, which the prosecution claimed was a conspiracy meeting.
Gerrah Selby
Sentenced to 4 years in prison for lawful protests in the UK and Europe. Specifically police-approved protests in Paris, supervised by a local lawyer. Also, attending a BBQ with friends, which was falsley described as a conspiracy meeting.
Debbie Vincent
Sentenced to 6 years in prison for day-to-day organising for SHAC, and attending official meetings with HLS customer Novartis.
Jason 'JJ' Mullen
Sentenced to 2 years, 8 months in prison for attending protests in the UK, and mainland Europe (despite s.145 SOCPA, under which he was convicted, only being applicable to activity in Britain).
Tom Harris
Sentenced to 4 years in prison for forwarding two anonymously received emails to a US direct action website, and assisting with the day to day running of the SHAC campaign.
Nicola Harris
Sentenced to 15 months in prison for 'day-to-day administration, production of the SHAC newsletter, circulating details of SHAC demonstrations, and sending out some email action alerts'.
Alfie Fitzpatrick
Sentenced to 1 years in prison (suspended) for attending lawful protests in the UK and mainland Europe. Also, for attending a BBQ with friends, which the prosecution claimed was a conspiracy meeting.
Justice delayed is justice denied…
Between 2009-2014, sixteen British animal rights advocates from the international pressure campaign SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) received prison sentences totalling almost 80 years for their activism against a notorious animal research laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Campaigners say they were denied access to a fair trial and believe crucial evidence which would have undermined the prosecution case was withheld, amounting to an abuse of process.
Key evidence used to convict activists links back to a security analyst named Ian Farmer / Adrian Radford who was deliberately planted into the heart of the SHAC campaign by the police, as part of a wider agreement by the UK Government and Pharmaceutical industry to launch a SHAC shutdown. There were at least four other spy cops linked to the campaign.
Despite the confession of Adrian Radford and mounting evidence of his involvement, the police and Crown Prosecution Service have always used the well established practice of issuing a “neither confirm nor deny” response to disclosure requests, and despite additional pleas in 2013, the then Director of Public Prosecution Sir Keir Starmer maintained “there is no material that should now be disclosed.”
Five of the SHAC activists seeking justice are named victims in Judge Mitting’s Undercover Policing Inquiry (also known as Spy Cops) in the miscarriage of justice category.
SHAC JUSTICE DEMANDS
- When a defendant is charged with an offence, prosecutors have a legal obligation to provide the defence with any material that undermines the case for the prosecution or assists the case for the defendant. In the SHAC trials, there was a failure to disclose crucial evidence to legal teams and we are calling on the Director of Public Prosecutions to give full disclosure relating to Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS), including but not limited to Adrian Radford, Rod Richardson, Mark Kennedy and Ritchie Clarke.
- The safety of criminal convictions in the SHAC trials must be reviewed and referred to the Court of Appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
- The Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) must set up a miscarriage of justice panel immediately to review the safety of convictions of all activists affected by spycops and CHIS.
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