Animal Aid

The unduly harsh treatment that some animal rights campaigners have received from the police and courts has broadly remained unremarked upon by the national media. In May, Sean Kirtley was sentenced to four-and-a-half years under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act for campaigning against the animal-testing laboratory, Sequani Ltd. Now that Kirtley is appealing his conviction, important sectors of the media are reporting on the case.

Quoted in The Independent this week, Kirtley’s solicitor said: ‘This is an unfair law which deviates from normal principles of criminal justice and the result is that what many people might see as conventional protesting becomes criminalised at all levels.’

Read The Independent’s story