COMPANIES besieged by animal rights extremists could be forced to contribute towards the policing of protests that have cost more than £10 million in the past five years.

Figures obtained by The Times under new freedom of information laws show the extent of the drain on police budgets. Discussions are under way between the Home Office, industry executives and police forces about whether companies should pay something towards the vast policing bill.

Many corporations spend millions of pounds on private security to protect staff and property. Industry leaders say that burdening companies with more costs could drive them overseas, with catastrophic effects on Britain’s £3 billion research and development sector.

Some police chiefs, however, have suggested that businesses should be partially liable for costs incurred by animal rights in the same way that football clubs pay for the policing of matches and the banking industry funds anti-fraud measures.

The Home Office has handed out £3.5 million of special grants to help police forces to recoup the cost of manning demonstrations and responding to the criminal activities of protesters. These have included assaults, threats, smear campaigns, window smashing and vandalism of cars.

Figures seen by The Times show that Cambridgeshire police have spent £5.4 million and nearly 400,000 man-hours protecting Huntingdon Life Sciences and its staff from protesters in the past five years. HLS is the country’s biggest research centre.

Staffordshire police have set up a unit to deal with animal rights activities at Darley Oaks guinea pig farm in Newchurch. Since 2000 the constabulary has spent £2.25 million on policing the farm and companies with which it does business. It has received £400,000 in Home Office grants. However, the Staffordshire constabulary said it was wary of policing being funded by industry because of potential implications of partiality. A spokesman said “any sort of funding agreement would have to be transparent”.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “If the industry were to offer to provide funding to tackle animal rights extremism, we would look at any proposals carefully.”

The suggestion that companies could stump up money for policing, as well as private security, was criticised by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. Philip Wright, its director of science and technology, said: “The UK is already an expensive place to undertake clinical research — any further demands will only drive research overseas.”

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