'Lunatic' body-snatchers jailed

Three members of a "lunatic fringe" animal rights group were jailed for 12 years each yesterday for their role in a terror campaign, during which the body of an 82-year-old was stolen from her grave.

Three men - John Ablewhite, from Manchester, Kerry Whitburn, from Birmingham, and John Smith, of Wolverhampton - were each handed 12-year prison terms at Nottingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiring to blackmail the owners of a guinea pig farm in Staffordshire.

A fourth defendant, Josephine Mayo, of Birmingham, was jailed for four years after admitting a lesser part in the six-year campaign against the Halls, who bred the animals for medical research purposes.

All four were leading figures in Save The Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) which became the public face of the campaign against the Halls.

As part of the campaign against the family, the body of the mother-in-law of one of the Hall brothers was stolen from her grave in a churchyard.

Her body was recovered earlier this month only after Smith revealed its location to police.

Judge Michael Pert QC told the defendants they represented a danger.

He said: "You assumed the right to dictate which lawful activities you would permit and which you would not. You thought to enforce your view not by reasoned debate or lawful protest but by subjecting wholly innocent citizens to a campaign of terror."

The judge said the Hall family had run a lawful business, and said he had read 38 statements taken from victims targeted in the campaign.

He said: "Your stated aim was to put the Hall family out of business, to that end, you targeted them, their employees and their families. You targeted people who did business with them and friends of them. You targeted the pub, the golf club and solicitors seeking to isolate them financially and socially.

"What is clear is that you have, in the vast majority of these cases, ruined their lives over a period of years and perhaps forever.

"The lowest point of your campaign was the theft of Gladys Hammond's body. You not only disinterred her but kept her family on tenterhooks as to whether you would return her body. We are not going to start guarding country graveyards on the off-chance that some other lunatic fringe group emulate you."

Despite closing the guinea pig business earlier this year, the family remained defiant.

- INDEPENDENT