SCIENTISTS and charities involved in animal research say that new measures announced by the Government yesterday are not tough enough to curb extremists.

While the research industry welcomed the Government’s public recognition of their plight, they felt that the proposals did not go far enough.

The pharmaceutical industry was disappointed that the Home Secretary, who called some ringleaders of opponents of animal reserch “terrorists”, did not take the lead in unveiling the new moves.

The Home Office says that police will be given the power to ban demonstrators near a person’s home for three months.

There would a three-month jail sentence or a £2,500 fine for protesting outside a private home and the same punishment for anyone breaking a banning order.

Harassment laws will be toughened to deal with campaigns aimed at groups of people working for the same company, such as research laboratories. But ministers stopped short yesterday of introducing a new law to take on animal rights terrorists which had been demanded by leading scientists. Instead, the Home Office appealed to the public to think twice before giving donations to groups which may use them to fund violent attacks.

The 20-page document says: “Such well-intentioned donations are unlikely to help animals, but are far more likely to be funding criminal activity.” Opposition politicians last night described the proposals as “too little, too late”.

What will worry research establishments is that hardline animal rights leaders claimed that the measures will not deter them from continuing to target scientists, businessmen and their families in their homes.

Leading figures in the research industry say that extremists are adept at changing tactics to get around new laws, and that legislation was needed to make crimes linked to animal rights activism aggravated offences, following the precendent set by racism and football hooliganism laws.

Mark Matfield, executive director of the Research Defence Society, said: “This is a good start, but my view is that the organisers of these campaigns need to be targeted. They are finding this information and putting it up on websites, and that is not a crime.The first thing to do is to make it a criminal offence to organise and fund a campaign of harassment.”

A record number of companies — more than 50 so far this year — have been forced to stop supplying animal laboratories. Robert Cogswell, spokesman for Speak, the group campaigning against a new animal testing facility at Oxford University, called the changes “window dressing” and said that the Government was pandering to pharmaceutical companies.

Officials say that the new measures should come before parliament by November.

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