WHEN Oxford University won a groundbreaking injunction against animal activists in the High Court this week, one figure stood out. With his shaved head and ear piercing, he appeared ill at ease among the legal figures and robed staff in the oak-panelled courtroom.

John Curtin, however, came across as mild-mannered and caring when speaking to reporters outside Court 9 after the univerity was granted an injunction establishing protest exclusion zones.

Adopting a tone of injured innocence, he said that the ruling was an attack on civil liberties. He also described himself as a full-time animal rescue worker.

But behind the front Curtin, 41, is a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement and a self-confessed former member of the Animal Liberation Front, a militant organisation that encourages illegal activity.

Curtin, who says he is now a Buddhist who has renounced violence, has served a string of prison sentences for violent disorder, burglary and theft of animals. In 1986 he went to prison for digging up the Duke of Beaufort’s grave in the name of the Hunt Retribution Squad.

Last month he was arrested for allegedly digging up and stealing the body of a woman whose son-in-law breeds guinea pigs for medical research. Although he was released without charge and expressed revulsion at the crime, Curtin has also previously said that “sooner or later an animal abuser is going to get killed . . . It is not a prospect I see as dreadful at all”.

There are about 20 extremists who are considered the greatest threat to Britain’s pharmaceutical industry, which is worth billions of pounds a year. Over the past few years activists have threatened, firebombed and vandalised property, not only that belonging to companies actively involved in animal testing, but their banks, suppliers and customers. All the while they attract popular support from members of the public who have little idea where the money they give on the high street is going.

It was the relentless and vicious campaign of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac) against Huntingdon Life Sciences that prompted police and other authorities to adopt a more co-ordinated approach and to start tackling the funding of extremist groups.

A new police department, the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, has been formed to deal with them after two major drug manufacturers threatened to pull out of Britain. The City accused ministers of not doing enough to combat growing violence which, it said, cost the economy £1 billion a year.

At the heart of the campaign against Huntingdon is Greg Avery, the brains behind and the public face of the crusade that almost bankrupted Huntingdon. Aged 36, he has a string of convictions and sees being arrested as an “occupational hazard”.

“We see this movement as part of history,” he has said. “Nelson Mandela struggled and fought for what he believed in.”

Avery rose to prominence when he set up a campaign in the mid-1990s against Consort Kennels, in Hereford, which bred beagles for animal experimentation. After its closure in 1997 he began targeting Hillgrove cat farm in Oxfordshire, which also closed after relentless pressure.

Avery then set his sights on Huntingdon Life Sciences. Shac has run an undeniably successful but fierce campaign, using alleged intimidation and harassment to scare away clients, suppliers and backers.

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