They have been awarded legal aid to challenge an injunction taken out by the university that bars them from harassing its staff, students and contractors at work or protesting at their homes. It also limits the size and duration of demonstrations.

It is believed to be the first time that animal rights activists have received such funding and follows warnings by the judiciary that legal aid for deserving defendants has been “scraped to the bone”.

Sources at the Legal Services Commission indicated that the protesters could get tens of thousands, while Oxford legal sources estimated the bill could be at least £100,000 for a High Court hearing of their challenge. Among the animal rights activists receiving the aid are:

• Mel Broughton, a leader of the activists’ campaign. He was given a four-year jail sentence in 1997 for conspiring to use incendiary bombs against an animal testing laboratory
• Robin Webb, official spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which has carried out arson attacks and made death threats. Webb was secretly filmed for a Channel 4 Dispatches programme in 1998 discussing how to build a bomb
• Amanda King, who was among campaigners referred to by a High Court judge in a separate civil case as carrying out “a form of terrorism” in a campaign to close a guinea pig farm. During the protest, the body of one of the farm owners’ relations was stolen from a graveyard and hidden in a secret location. There is no evidence that King was involved in the disinterment.

  This weekend scientists and politicians challenged the Legal Services Commission, which administers legal aid, to explain how it could justify the award.

  Oliver Heald, Conservative shadow secretary for constitutional affairs, said: “At a time when the crisis in legal aid is restricting access to justice for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society, many people will be concerned to learn that taxpayers’ money is being used in this way.”

  Tipu Aziz, professor of neurosurgery at Oxford University, said: “When you think of how many people are turned down for legal aid, for other more well-defined reasons, I would think that is appalling.

  “They are talking about the right for free speech, but for over 20 years they have silenced scientists by their acts. Scientists had no free speech. And now with the help of the government and the injunction, more and more are speaking out. So actually it has helped free speech.

  “There is nothing to stop them trying to sell their case. But there is nothing to support them terrorising people. This is a university campus.”

  Applicants for legal aid have to show they cannot personally afford court action or have alternative sources of funds and that their case has a reasonable chance of success. The commission also has to consider the “nature” and “complexity” of the case. Money can be withdrawn if it is judged the action is not in the public interest.

  In a statement, the commission said it could “not differentiate between applicants for legal aid on the grounds that a decision to grant funding may be unpopular in a particular case”.

  In recent years it has rejected applications by the people injured in the Potters Bar train crash, who wanted to sue Jarvis, the engineering company, and Railtrack, and more than 500 people who had strokes or heart attacks after being treated with the painkiller Vioxx.

  Legal aid was granted to the animal rights activists after Oxford took out injunctions to combat protests that have dogged the university since January 2004.

  Its main contractor pulled out in July 2004 after the ALF mounted attacks on equipment and the homes of its workers. Work restarted only last November with builders wearing masks to hide their identities.

  So serious has been the intimidation that the chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s biggest drugs company, warned that his firm might move its research operations abroad if harassment by animal rights extremists worsens. The company was last month forced to seek an injunction after threats to shareholders.

  Under the Oxford University injunction, King, Webb and Broughton, and Speak, the animal rights organisation that he jointly heads, were restrained from threatening or photographing university staff, students or contractors. They have also been banned from protesting near the homes of university and contractor staff and the laboratory site.

  Broughton, 46, from Northampton, said: “If the government can afford to get these injunctions, or pay for Oxford University to get them . . . then it seems wholly disproportionate that individuals who are opposing them, who don’t have the financial means to stand up to these injunctions, are left at the mercy of the courts.”

  Since receiving legal aid, King has succeeded in having her name removed from the Oxford order and Webb is seeking a similar judgment.

  In a tandem case, anti-fur activists who are fighting restrictions on protests outside Harrods, the London department store, have also attracted public funding.

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