A MILLIONAIRE former property developer has emerged as a key figure in the animal rights movement with close connections to its extremist wing.

James Gorman, 57, a vegan bodybuilder, has pledged to give more than £1m to the movement and helps a group that raises funds for members who have been jailed.

Inquiries by The Sunday Times have established that he is in regular contact with Keith Mann, an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) member and notorious activist. Gorman also regularly meets Greg and Natasha Avery, campaigners for the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac) campaign, who were jailed in 2001 for causing a public nuisance.

Speaking last week, Gorman admitted he had carried out “direct action” and surveillance for extremists but said he was no longer involved in such actions, though he still supported the movement.

Gorman said he had made his fortune as a property developer before becoming an osteopath based in London. He now owns a £400,000 house on the private Aldwick Bay estate near Bognor Regis, West Sussex, as well as property in Florida.

He said he worked full-time in education, giving lectures and showing videos on vegan diets to schoolchildren and college and university students. He refused to discuss whether he had been involved in similar activities to Mann or whether they had carried out operations together.

“I would not want to say that he was involved with me or I was involved with him. I do know Keith very well, but I do not want to say something about someone else that might cause them a problem,” he said.

“I’ve rescued animals — no problem at all . . . I have been involved with surveillance, undercover work.”

He added: “The ALF are freedom fighters fighting the terrorists who are terrorising the animals.”

It was difficult to mix direct action with his more recent career of educational talks, he said. “The trouble was it was very difficult to go in and do a college talk and then on the other hand you’re out the next day and coming up against the Establishment. You can’t really conduct it like that. So I had to go away from that to come into education, and that is what I chose to do.”

Gorman is the “nutritional adviser” to the Vegan Prisoners Support Group, which was formed to help Mann, who was given an 11-year prison sentence in 1994 for criminal damage and attempted arson. He is also in close contact with the group’s founder, Jo-Ann Brown, known as “Mother Brown”.

The group is currently raising funds for David Blenkinsop, jailed for an attack on Brian Cass, the managing director of the research company Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). During the attack Cass was clubbed by three masked men wielding pickaxe handles.

The group also supplied food to Greg Avery during several of his jail terms for animal extremism offences. However, Gorman said he would avoid bequeathing his fortune to “hardcore” groups such as Shac, which campaigns to close HLS, because he fears it would be seized by the authorities. “My money is left in my will, and I’ve left over £1m,” he said.

He has left it to groups that he knows are not illegal. “I would not give money to Shac because I do not think they would get it. I would not want my money to be wasted,” he said.

Last month The Sunday Times revealed how Shac is linked to Gateway to Hell, a new campaign fronted by Mann that is targeting airports, ports and freight firms importing animals for experimentation.

Since the launch of the campaign, unknown assailants have attacked homes and vehicles of five air transport executives.

Gorman denied last week that he was involved in any continuing animal rights campaign. “There are all different aspects of the whole movement. The part I am involved with is different from the part Greg Avery is involved with, which is different from the part Keith Mann is involved with,” he said.

Last week Gorman claimed he had been questioned by police and he attempted to withdraw his comments. He even declined to admit that his surname was Gorman, although his present and previous houses were both registered in that name.

“They call me Mr James in the movement,” he said.

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