AN ANIMAL rights activist was jailed for six months for contempt of court yesterday after threatening a director of an animal laboratory moments after being sentenced for another offence.

The incident happened just after Keith Mann had been given a 230-hour community punishment order for conspiring to burgle the laboratory.

As he was passing the public gallery, he made the threat to Chris Bishop, technical director of Wickham Laboratories. Judge Richard Price reconvened the court and held a short trial, after which he jailed Mann, 38, for six months for contempt of court.

Mann, who was jailed in 1994 for 14 years for carrying out a terrorist-style sabotage campaign against the meat industry, had been told that he faced a possible jail sentence yesterday, but the judge decided to hand down the community punishment order after hearing that the defendant was a carer for his partner.

However, the court was told, as Mann left the court, he lent over Mr Bishop and said: “Your trouble has only just started, you will need to look under your bed.”

The jusge, sentencing Mann for contempt of court, said: “I will not have people leaving my court saying that sort of thing. I do not want to make him a martyr, he’s just made himself one.”

Mann said that he had not intended to threaten Mr Bishop and denied suggesting to him that he needed to look under his bed.

When sentencing Mann earlier for the offence of conspiracy to burgle, the judge said that Mann had no right to commit a burglary even if he believed that he had a moral right to do so. Mann had admitted that he had organised the burglary on December 13, 2003, when 695 mice were stolen from the laboratories in Wickham, Hampshire.

Mann, of Poole, Dorset, denied dishonesty because he claimed that he had been acting to prevent an unlawful act taking place. Mann believed that the tests on the mice were illegal because the end product was used for cosmetic purposes abroad. Animal testing is legal in Britain for medicinal purposes, but not for cosmetic purposes.

While sentencing Mann to a non-custodial sentence for the burglary, the judge said that a community punishment was appropriate because he did not want to draw undue publicity to Mann’s cause. The court heard that Mann was sentenced in 1994 to 14 years for arson attacks on meat lorries. His sentence was reduced to 11 years in 1995 after a publicity campaign, which included supporters such as Caarla Lane, the television playwright.

Melvyn Glintenkamp, 42, of New Milton, was also found guilty of conspiracy to burgle and was sentenced to 150 hours’ community punishment.

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