Barry Horne
Encyclopedia
Barry Horne was an English animal rights
activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the British government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing
, something the Labour Party
had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.
The hunger strike left Horne with kidney damage and failing eyesight, but it was neither the first nor the last he embarked upon, and when he died of liver failure at the age of 49, he had not eaten for 15 days. Media reaction to his death in the UK was hostile, where he was widely described as a terrorist by journalists and politicians. He is viewed as a martyr within the animal rights movement.
. He became active with Northampton Animal Concern in the spring of 1987, which organised a raid of a Unilever
laboratory, and picketed Beatties
, a department store that sold fur coats.
Horne first came to public attention in 1988, when he tried to rescue Rocky, a bottlenose dolphin
captured in 1971 off the Florida Panhandle
then kept for 20 years, most of the time alone, in a small concrete pool at Marineland, in Morecambe
, Lancashire. Horne and four other activists planned to move Rocky, who weighed 650 lb (294.8 kg), 200 yards from the pool to the sea, using a ladder, a net, a home-made stretcher, and a hired Mini Metro.
Horne and his friends had already been visiting the dolphinarium
secretly at night, getting into the pool with the dolphin in an effort to get to know him. On the night of the action, after arriving at the poolside with their equipment, they realised the logistics of the operation were beyond them, and they left without Rocky. A police car stopped them on the way back to their car, which contained a large dolphin stretcher for which, as one of the activists put it, "we had no legitimate explanation." After a five-day trial, they were convicted of conspiracy to steal the animal. Horne, Jim O'Donnell, Mel Broughton
, and Jim Buckner were fined £500, and Horne and Broughton were given an additional six-month suspended sentence.
Horne and the others continued with their mission to free Rocky, and in 1989 launched the Morecambe Dolphinarium Campaign, picketing the dolphinarium, handing out leaflets to tourists, organising rallies, and lobbying the local council. Losing ticket sales, the management of Marineland eventually agreed to sell the dolphin for £120,000, money that was raised with the help of a number of animal charities, including the Born Free Foundation
, and supported by the Mail on Sunday, which launched the "Into the Blue" campaign to free Britain's captive dolphins. In 1991, Rocky was transferred to an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) lagoon reserve in the Turks and Caicos Islands
, then released, and within days was seen swimming with a pod of wild dolphins. Peter Hughes of the University of Sunderland cites Horne's campaign as an example of how promoting an animal rights perspective created a paradigm shift
in the UK toward seeing dolphins as "individual actors" who should be viewed in the wild if tourists want to interact with them. As a result, Hughes writes, there are now no captive dolphins in the UK.
Together with Keith Mann
and Danny Attwood, Horne was part of a small Animal Liberation Front
cell that raided Harlan Interfauna
, a British company in Cambridge that supplies laboratory animals and organs, on 17 March 1990, Horne's 38th birthday. The activists entered Interfauna's animal units through holes they punched in the roof, removing 82 beagle puppies and 26 rabbits. They also removed documents listing Interfauna's customers, which included Boots, Glaxo, Beechams, and Huntingdon Research Centre
, as well as a number of universities. A vet who was an ALF supporter removed the tattoos from the dogs' ears, and they were dispersed to new homes across the UK. As a result of evidence found at the scene and in one of the activists' homes, Mann and Attwood were convicted of conspiracy to burgle and were sentenced to nine months and 18 months respectively.
. They overturned tables and smashed 50 bottles of vintage claret
, after fighting with police to enter the conference hall. Horne and five others were charged with violent disorder.
writes that the nature of police interest in animal rights activists was such that working alone was safer, and Horne was anyway a reserved man, happy to go out alone and "do stuff," as he put it.
A number of night-time firebomb attacks, using home-made incendiary devices, took place over the next two years in Oxford, Cambridge, York, Harrogate, London, Bristol, as well as Newport and Ryde on the Isle of Wight
. The attacks targeted Boots stores, Halfords, stores selling leather goods, and stores run by cancer research charities. Some of the attacks were claimed by the Animal Rights Militia
, a name used by activists unwilling to abide by the Animal Liberation Front
's policy of non-violence. Mann writes that it "wasn't rocket science" to deduce that Horne had something to do with the attacks, because very few activists were willing to plant incendiary devices, and Horne was known to be one of the hard core who would. The police were therefore watching him closely. According to Mann, Horne knew he would be caught, but he saw animal rights activism as a war, and he was willing to become a casualty. Police raised his home in Swindon, Wiltshire after the bombing campaign on the Isle of Wight, and reportedly found material advocating such attacks, but he was not charged. Police kept him under surveillance, and he was arrested in July 1996 and charged with planting two incendiary devices in the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol—one in a charity shop and the second in British Home Stores, set to explode at midnight, when he assumed they would be empty. Police found a further four devices in his pockets.
Judge Simon Darwall-Smith described him as an "urban terrorist," though he also said, "I do accept that you did not intend an attack on human life." On 5 December 1997, the judge handed down an 18-year sentence, the longest given to any animal-rights protester. Because of the similarity between the Bristol devices and others used on the Isle of Wight, Horne was also accused of having caused damage estimated at £3 million in 1994 by destroying a branch of Boots the Chemists in Newport, because the company tests its products on animals. He was further accused of having set fire to department stores on the island that sold fur coats. At his trial, he admitted the Bristol charges, but denied involvement in the Isle of Wight attacks, which had been claimed by the Animal Rights Militia. Robin Webb
of the Animal Liberation Press Office
writes that he himself narrowly escaped a conspiracy charge over the same incidents.
's Conservative government pledged to withdraw its support for animal testing within five years. Because Labour was regarded as likely to win the next general election, due to be held in May 1997, Horne ended his action on 9 February after 35 days without food, when Elliot Morley
, then Labour animal welfare spokesperson, wrote that "Labour is committed to a reduction and an eventual end to vivisection."
The hunger strike sparked an increase in animal-rights activism, including the removal of cats from Hill Grove farm
in Oxfordshire, which bred cats for laboratories; damage to Harlan
breeding center and the removal of beagles from Consort Kennels; the destruction of seven lorries at Buxted poultry plant in Northamptonshire; a blockade of the port of Dover and heavy damage to a McDonalds in the town; and the removal of rabbits being bred for vivisection in Homestead Farm.
in Sweden, where activists tried to storm the university's laboratories. Four hundred people marched on Shamrock Farm
, a primate-holding facility near Brighton, 300 on Wickham Laboratories
, a contract testing facility, and Labour Party offices were picketed, as was the home of Jack Straw
, the Home Secretary. Activists set up a camp opposite Huntingdon Life Sciences
on the A1 in Cambridgeshire, digging underground tunnels to make eviction harder. Newchurch guinea pig farm
was raided in September and 600 guinea pigs removed.
Horne ended the hunger strike on 26 September, after 46 days without food, when Lord Williams of Mostyn
, then a Home Office minister and later Attorney-General, contacted Horne's supporters with an offer of talks between them and the government. This was the first time a member of the government had agreed formally to talk to the animal liberation movement, and it was seen by Horne and his supporters as an important step forward.
This time, Horne's demands were extensive and specific. He asked for an end to issuing licences for animal experiments, and that no current licences be renewed; a ban on all vivisection conducted for non-medical purposes; a commitment to end all vivisection by 6 January 2002; an immediate end to all animal experimentation at the Porton Down
defence establishment; and the closure of the Animal Procedures Committee
, a government advisory body that Horne regarded as a "Government sponsored front for the vivisection industry." He issued a statement, now quoted by the movement as a rallying cry:
Keith Mann writes that, this time, Horne found the hunger strike tougher going, perhaps because of the physical damage from the first two. He was in D Wing in Full Sutton prison to begin with, then was moved to the hospital wing on day 10 without food, where he was reportedly placed in the "hunger strike cell" with no toilet or sink and with just a cardboard chair and cardboard table. He was moved to a regular cell after pressure from supporters. He was read the Last Rites
on day 43, having lost 25 percent of his body fat.
The Labour government publicly refused to give in to what it called blackmail, and said it would not negotiate with Horne or his supporters, but privately, it held talks with them. Horne's MP
, Tony Clarke, visited Horne in prison on 12 November to negotiate another meeting between Horne's supporters and the Home Office, which took place on 19 November 44 days into the strike. After the meeting, Horne released a statement saying there was nothing new on offer, and that his hunger strike would continue. He then reduced his demands to asking for a Royal Commission
on animal testing, which the Labour Party had indicated that it would hold if elected.
On day 46, he was moved to York General Hospital, suffering from dehydration after having spent the week vomiting. By day 52, he was reportedly in severe pain, was finding it hard to see, and was danger of falling into a coma. According to Mann, his supporters were bringing him tape recordings of the talks with the government, which he was having difficulty concentrating on. Mann writes that Horne decided to take some orange juice and sweet tea for three days, in order to stave off the coma so that he could understand the negotiations. This later caused the media to refer to the hunger strike as a fraud.
There was an international response by activists in support of Horne. In York and London, protesters kept vigil outside the hospital, and opposite the Houses of Parliament
in Westminster
, holding candles, placards, and photographs of Horne, joined at one point by Alan Clark
, the Conservative
Member of Parliament, who despite his support for the cause referred to the protesters in his diary as "dysfunctional."
On 24 November, at the state opening of Parliament, activists dropped a banner in support of Horne in front of the Queen's official car as it drove towards the Houses of Parliament. Shortly after this, two activists parked a car at the end of Downing Street
, slashed its tires, and used D-Locks to attach themselves by the neck to the steering wheel, while protesters demonstrated nearby. Activists marched on BIBRA labs in southwest London and at Windmill mink farm in Dorset. In Finland, 400 foxes and 200 racoons were released from a fur farm. The offices of the Research Defence Society
in London were raided. Demonstrations were held outside British embassies and consulates around the world, laboratories were raided, and government buildings picketed.
(ARM) issued a statement through Robin Webb
of the Animal Liberation Press Office
, threatening to assassinate four named individuals and six unnamed scientists, should Horne die. The named targets were Colin Blakemore
, a British scientist who studies vision; Clive Page of King’s College, London
, a professor of pulmonary
pharmacology
and chair of the animal science group of the British Biosciences Federation; Mark Matfield of the Research Defence Society
; and Christopher Brown, owner of Hillgrove Farm in Oxfordshire, who was breeding cats for laboratories.
Those on the ARM's list were given immediate police protection, which in some cases lasted years, and Special Branch stepped up its surveillance of activists, in particular of Robin Webb. Professor Clive Page told the BBC that he was in Italy when he heard his name was on the list. He had to return home to explain the situation to his family. "It's difficult to tell your children, 'Daddy's going to be murdered'," he said. The police wired his home up directly to Special Branch
, he was advised to take different routes each day to work, and he had to speak to his children's schools about the possibility of abduction.
regarding offers the government might be willing to make. It was agreed that, if there was any substance to them, Horne would call off the strike. Early on the morning of 10 December 1998, on day 66, without notice to his supporters or family, Horne was moved out of hospital and back to Full Sutton Prison. The Home Office explained that, because he was refusing treatment, there was no need for him to be in hospital. Mann writes that Horne was hallucinating and could no longer remember why he was on hunger strike.
, to agree to attend a meeting with Ian Cawsey, head of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Animal Welfare, to discuss animal testing practices in the UK. This was interpreted by Horne as a concession on the part of the government, and he agreed to start eating again on 13 December 1998. His friends suspect that something happened to him during the two days he was back in Full Sutton out of contact with them. Mann writes: "Whatever happened to him between leaving the hospital and returning to prison may never be known, but all those close to him suspect something did and he was never the same again."
The British media response to the end of the hunger strike was hostile. Newspapers focused on the period Horne had been drinking orange juice and sweet tea, writing that the hunger strike had been a fraud throughout. Mann writes that the media turned three days of trying to stabilise his condition with sips of sweet liquid into "68 days of feasting."
Horne did not recover his physical health. Mann writes that he continued to go on countless hunger strikes in prison without any cohesive strategy and with little support. It got to the point where no one apart from the guards knew whether he was eating or not. He embarked on his final hunger strike on 21 October 2001, and died 15 days later of liver failure. He had signed a directive refusing medical treatment, and was regarded by psychiatrists as of sound mind, which meant the prison authorities did not intervene.
The hostile media response continued after his death. Kevin Toolis wrote in The Guardian:
under an oak tree in a woodland cemetery, wearing a Northampton Town
football shirt. Seven hundred people attended the pagan
funeral service and accompanied the coffin through the town, carrying a banner that read: "Labour lied, Barry died".
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the British government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing
Animal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
, something the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.
The hunger strike left Horne with kidney damage and failing eyesight, but it was neither the first nor the last he embarked upon, and when he died of liver failure at the age of 49, he had not eaten for 15 days. Media reaction to his death in the UK was hostile, where he was widely described as a terrorist by journalists and politicians. He is viewed as a martyr within the animal rights movement.
Early life
Horne was born in Liverpool. His father was a postman, and his mother died when he was very young. He left school at 15, and took a series of jobs as a road sweeper and dustman.Northampton Animal Concern
Horne became interested in animal rights at the age of 35, when his second wife, Aileen, persuaded him to attend an animal liberation meeting. After watching videos of animal testing, he decided to become a vegetarian and hunt saboteurHunt saboteur
Hunt sabotage is the direct action that animal rights or animal welfare activists undertake to interfere with hunting activity.Anti-hunting campaigners are divided into those who believe in direct intervention and those who watch the hunt to monitor for cruelty and report violations of animal...
. He became active with Northampton Animal Concern in the spring of 1987, which organised a raid of a Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
laboratory, and picketed Beatties
Beatties
Beatties is a British department store group with 7 stores located primarily in the Midlands of England. In 2005 James Beattie was acquired by House of Fraser, then having 12 stores. On , the Birmingham store closed, due to the uneconomical aspects of having two similar House of Fraser owned stores...
, a department store that sold fur coats.
Rocky the dolphin
Bottlenose Dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins, the genus Tursiops, are the most common and well-known members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Recent molecular studies show the genus contains two species, the common bottlenose dolphin and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin , instead of one...
captured in 1971 off the Florida Panhandle
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...
then kept for 20 years, most of the time alone, in a small concrete pool at Marineland, in Morecambe
Morecambe
Morecambe is a resort town and civil parish within the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England. As of 2001 it has a resident population of 38,917. It faces into Morecambe Bay...
, Lancashire. Horne and four other activists planned to move Rocky, who weighed 650 lb (294.8 kg), 200 yards from the pool to the sea, using a ladder, a net, a home-made stretcher, and a hired Mini Metro.
Horne and his friends had already been visiting the dolphinarium
Dolphinarium
A dolphinarium is an aquarium for dolphins. The dolphins are usually kept in a large pool, though occasionally they may be kept in pens in the open sea, either for research or for public performances...
secretly at night, getting into the pool with the dolphin in an effort to get to know him. On the night of the action, after arriving at the poolside with their equipment, they realised the logistics of the operation were beyond them, and they left without Rocky. A police car stopped them on the way back to their car, which contained a large dolphin stretcher for which, as one of the activists put it, "we had no legitimate explanation." After a five-day trial, they were convicted of conspiracy to steal the animal. Horne, Jim O'Donnell, Mel Broughton
Mel Broughton
Mel Broughton is a British landscape gardener who has risen to public prominence as one of the UK's most notable animal rights advocates...
, and Jim Buckner were fined £500, and Horne and Broughton were given an additional six-month suspended sentence.
Horne and the others continued with their mission to free Rocky, and in 1989 launched the Morecambe Dolphinarium Campaign, picketing the dolphinarium, handing out leaflets to tourists, organising rallies, and lobbying the local council. Losing ticket sales, the management of Marineland eventually agreed to sell the dolphin for £120,000, money that was raised with the help of a number of animal charities, including the Born Free Foundation
Born Free Foundation
The Born Free Foundation is a conservation and animal rescue organization in the United Kingdom. It originated in 1984 as the "Zoo Check Campaign" by actors Virginia McKenna and her husband Bill Travers along with their son Will Travers and four associates....
, and supported by the Mail on Sunday, which launched the "Into the Blue" campaign to free Britain's captive dolphins. In 1991, Rocky was transferred to an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) lagoon reserve in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Turks and Caicos Islands
The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union consisting of two groups of tropical islands in the Caribbean, the larger Caicos Islands and the smaller Turks Islands, known for tourism and as an offshore financial centre.The Turks and...
, then released, and within days was seen swimming with a pod of wild dolphins. Peter Hughes of the University of Sunderland cites Horne's campaign as an example of how promoting an animal rights perspective created a paradigm shift
Paradigm shift
A Paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science...
in the UK toward seeing dolphins as "individual actors" who should be viewed in the wild if tourists want to interact with them. As a result, Hughes writes, there are now no captive dolphins in the UK.
Harlan Interfauna raid
Keith Mann
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and writer, alleged by police in 2005 to be at the top of the Animal Liberation Front pyramid. He is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement...
and Danny Attwood, Horne was part of a small Animal Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
cell that raided Harlan Interfauna
Harlan (company)
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. is one of the world's leading suppliers of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing...
, a British company in Cambridge that supplies laboratory animals and organs, on 17 March 1990, Horne's 38th birthday. The activists entered Interfauna's animal units through holes they punched in the roof, removing 82 beagle puppies and 26 rabbits. They also removed documents listing Interfauna's customers, which included Boots, Glaxo, Beechams, and Huntingdon Research Centre
Huntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, with facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire; Eye, Suffolk; New Jersey in the U.S., and Japan...
, as well as a number of universities. A vet who was an ALF supporter removed the tattoos from the dogs' ears, and they were dispersed to new homes across the UK. As a result of evidence found at the scene and in one of the activists' homes, Mann and Attwood were convicted of conspiracy to burgle and were sentenced to nine months and 18 months respectively.
Exeter College raid
Horne was one of a number of protesters who attacked an animal research conference at Exeter College, OxfordExeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
. They overturned tables and smashed 50 bottles of vintage claret
Claret
Claret is a name primarily used in British English for red wine from the Bordeaux region of France.-Usage:Claret derives from the French clairet, a now uncommon dark rosé and the most common wine exported from Bordeaux until the 18th century...
, after fighting with police to enter the conference hall. Horne and five others were charged with violent disorder.
1991: Imprisonment
In 1991, Horne was sentenced to three years for possession of explosive substances. His attitude appeared to harden while in jail. In June 1993, he wrote in the Support Animal Rights Prisoners Newsletter: "The animals continue to die and the torture goes on in greater and greater measure. Peoples' answer to this? More vegeburgers, more Special Brew and more apathy. There is no longer any Animal Liberation Movement. That died long ago. All that is left is a very few activists who care, who understand and who act ... If you don't act then you condone. If you don't fight then you don't win. And if you don't win then you are responsible for the death and suffering that will go on and on."Firebombing and arrest
After his release in 1994, Horne reportedly began to work as a one-man clandestine cell. Keith MannKeith Mann
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and writer, alleged by police in 2005 to be at the top of the Animal Liberation Front pyramid. He is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement...
writes that the nature of police interest in animal rights activists was such that working alone was safer, and Horne was anyway a reserved man, happy to go out alone and "do stuff," as he put it.
A number of night-time firebomb attacks, using home-made incendiary devices, took place over the next two years in Oxford, Cambridge, York, Harrogate, London, Bristol, as well as Newport and Ryde on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
. The attacks targeted Boots stores, Halfords, stores selling leather goods, and stores run by cancer research charities. Some of the attacks were claimed by the Animal Rights Militia
Animal Rights Militia
The Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
, a name used by activists unwilling to abide by the Animal Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
's policy of non-violence. Mann writes that it "wasn't rocket science" to deduce that Horne had something to do with the attacks, because very few activists were willing to plant incendiary devices, and Horne was known to be one of the hard core who would. The police were therefore watching him closely. According to Mann, Horne knew he would be caught, but he saw animal rights activism as a war, and he was willing to become a casualty. Police raised his home in Swindon, Wiltshire after the bombing campaign on the Isle of Wight, and reportedly found material advocating such attacks, but he was not charged. Police kept him under surveillance, and he was arrested in July 1996 and charged with planting two incendiary devices in the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol—one in a charity shop and the second in British Home Stores, set to explode at midnight, when he assumed they would be empty. Police found a further four devices in his pockets.
1997: 18-year sentence
Horne's trial for arson began on 12 November 1997, six weeks after the end of the second hunger strike, at Bristol Crown Court. He pleaded guilty to attempted arson in Bristol, but denied involvement in the Isle of Wight attacks. Although there was no direct evidence to link Horne to the Isle of Wight incidents, the prosecution argued successfully that the devices used in Bristol and the Isle of Wight were so similar that Horne should be regarded as responsible for both. He was put through 14 ID parades but was picked out in none of them.Judge Simon Darwall-Smith described him as an "urban terrorist," though he also said, "I do accept that you did not intend an attack on human life." On 5 December 1997, the judge handed down an 18-year sentence, the longest given to any animal-rights protester. Because of the similarity between the Bristol devices and others used on the Isle of Wight, Horne was also accused of having caused damage estimated at £3 million in 1994 by destroying a branch of Boots the Chemists in Newport, because the company tests its products on animals. He was further accused of having set fire to department stores on the island that sold fur coats. At his trial, he admitted the Bristol charges, but denied involvement in the Isle of Wight attacks, which had been claimed by the Animal Rights Militia. Robin Webb
Robin Webb
Robin Webb is an English animal rights activist. He is a former member of the ruling council of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals , and former director of Animal Aid...
of the Animal Liberation Press Office
Animal Liberation Press Office
Animal Liberation Press Offices relay anonymous communiques, photos and videos to the media about direct action undertaken by the Animal Liberation Front , Animal Rights Militia , Animal Liberation Brigade, Justice Department, and other leaderless resistance within the animal liberation movement...
writes that he himself narrowly escaped a conspiracy charge over the same incidents.
January 1997: 35 days
On 6 January 1997, six months after being jailed on remand for the firebombings, as a Category A prisoner, Horne announced that he would refuse all food unless John MajorJohn Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
's Conservative government pledged to withdraw its support for animal testing within five years. Because Labour was regarded as likely to win the next general election, due to be held in May 1997, Horne ended his action on 9 February after 35 days without food, when Elliot Morley
Elliot Morley
Elliot Anthony Morley is a former Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Glanford and Scunthorpe from 1987 to 1997 and then Scunthorpe from 1997 to 2010. In 2009, he was accused by The Daily Telegraph of continuing to claim parliamentary expenses for a mortgage that had...
, then Labour animal welfare spokesperson, wrote that "Labour is committed to a reduction and an eventual end to vivisection."
The hunger strike sparked an increase in animal-rights activism, including the removal of cats from Hill Grove farm
Save the Hill Grove Cats
Save the Hill Grove Cats was a British animal rights campaign set up in 1997 with the aim of closing Hill Grove Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire. The farm, owned by Christopher Brown, was the last commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in the United Kingdom...
in Oxfordshire, which bred cats for laboratories; damage to Harlan
Harlan (company)
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. is one of the world's leading suppliers of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing...
breeding center and the removal of beagles from Consort Kennels; the destruction of seven lorries at Buxted poultry plant in Northamptonshire; a blockade of the port of Dover and heavy damage to a McDonalds in the town; and the removal of rabbits being bred for vivisection in Homestead Farm.
August 1997: 46 days
The second hunger strike began on 11 August 1997. Horne's aim was that the new Labour government withdraw all animal testing licences within an agreed timeframe. There was another increase in animal-rights activism in his support. On 12 September 1997, protests were held in London and Southampton in the UK, in The Hague, in Cleveland, Ohio, and at Umeå UniversityUmeå University
Umeå University is a university in Umeå in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders....
in Sweden, where activists tried to storm the university's laboratories. Four hundred people marched on Shamrock Farm
Shamrock Farm
Shamrock Farm was Britain's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Brighton in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb, and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc...
, a primate-holding facility near Brighton, 300 on Wickham Laboratories
Wickham Laboratories
Wickham Laboratories is a contract analytical testing laboratory that supports Food, Healthcare, Medical Device, and Flood disaster recovery industries...
, a contract testing facility, and Labour Party offices were picketed, as was the home of Jack Straw
Jack Straw
Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...
, the Home Secretary. Activists set up a camp opposite Huntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, with facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire; Eye, Suffolk; New Jersey in the U.S., and Japan...
on the A1 in Cambridgeshire, digging underground tunnels to make eviction harder. Newchurch guinea pig farm
Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs
Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs was a six-year campaign by British animal rights activists to close a farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire that bred guinea pigs for animal research...
was raided in September and 600 guinea pigs removed.
Horne ended the hunger strike on 26 September, after 46 days without food, when Lord Williams of Mostyn
Gareth Williams, Baron Williams of Mostyn
Gareth Wyn Williams, Baron Williams of Mostyn, PC, QC, was a Welsh barrister and Labour politician who was Leader of the House of Lords, Lord President of the Council and a member of the Cabinet at the time of his sudden death in 2003.Williams was born near Prestatyn, in North Wales, a son of...
, then a Home Office minister and later Attorney-General, contacted Horne's supporters with an offer of talks between them and the government. This was the first time a member of the government had agreed formally to talk to the animal liberation movement, and it was seen by Horne and his supporters as an important step forward.
October 1998: 68 days
Horne's longest hunger strike began on 6 October 1998 and ended 68 days later on 13 December. It brought the issue of animal experimentation to the forefront of British politics, while his deteriorating condition made headlines around the world, as activists threatened further disruption should he die, with some issuing death threats against several scientists.This time, Horne's demands were extensive and specific. He asked for an end to issuing licences for animal experiments, and that no current licences be renewed; a ban on all vivisection conducted for non-medical purposes; a commitment to end all vivisection by 6 January 2002; an immediate end to all animal experimentation at the Porton Down
Porton Down
Porton Down is a United Kingdom government and military science park. It is situated slightly northeast of Porton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. To the northwest lies the MoD Boscombe Down test range facility which is operated by QinetiQ...
defence establishment; and the closure of the Animal Procedures Committee
Animal Procedures Committee
The Animal Procedures Committee advises the British Home Secretary on matters related to animal testing in the UK. The function of the committee was made a statutory requirement by the Animals Act 1986 , which mandates that it should have at least 12 members, excluding the chair...
, a government advisory body that Horne regarded as a "Government sponsored front for the vivisection industry." He issued a statement, now quoted by the movement as a rallying cry:
The fight is not for us, not for our personal wants and needs. It is for every animal that has ever suffered and died in the vivisection labs, and for every animal that will suffer and die in those same labs unless we end this evil business now. The souls of the tortured dead cry out for justice, the cry of the living is for freedom. We can create that justice and we can deliver that freedom. The animals have no one but us. We will not fail them.
Keith Mann writes that, this time, Horne found the hunger strike tougher going, perhaps because of the physical damage from the first two. He was in D Wing in Full Sutton prison to begin with, then was moved to the hospital wing on day 10 without food, where he was reportedly placed in the "hunger strike cell" with no toilet or sink and with just a cardboard chair and cardboard table. He was moved to a regular cell after pressure from supporters. He was read the Last Rites
Last Rites
The Last Rites are the very last prayers and ministrations given to many Christians before death. The last rites go by various names and include different practices in different Christian traditions...
on day 43, having lost 25 percent of his body fat.
The Labour government publicly refused to give in to what it called blackmail, and said it would not negotiate with Horne or his supporters, but privately, it held talks with them. Horne's MP
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
, Tony Clarke, visited Horne in prison on 12 November to negotiate another meeting between Horne's supporters and the Home Office, which took place on 19 November 44 days into the strike. After the meeting, Horne released a statement saying there was nothing new on offer, and that his hunger strike would continue. He then reduced his demands to asking for a Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
on animal testing, which the Labour Party had indicated that it would hold if elected.
On day 46, he was moved to York General Hospital, suffering from dehydration after having spent the week vomiting. By day 52, he was reportedly in severe pain, was finding it hard to see, and was danger of falling into a coma. According to Mann, his supporters were bringing him tape recordings of the talks with the government, which he was having difficulty concentrating on. Mann writes that Horne decided to take some orange juice and sweet tea for three days, in order to stave off the coma so that he could understand the negotiations. This later caused the media to refer to the hunger strike as a fraud.
Activism in support of Horne
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
in Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
, holding candles, placards, and photographs of Horne, joined at one point by Alan Clark
Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
, the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Member of Parliament, who despite his support for the cause referred to the protesters in his diary as "dysfunctional."
On 24 November, at the state opening of Parliament, activists dropped a banner in support of Horne in front of the Queen's official car as it drove towards the Houses of Parliament. Shortly after this, two activists parked a car at the end of Downing Street
Downing Street
Downing Street in London, England has for over two hundred years housed the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers: the First Lord of the Treasury, an office now synonymous with that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an...
, slashed its tires, and used D-Locks to attach themselves by the neck to the steering wheel, while protesters demonstrated nearby. Activists marched on BIBRA labs in southwest London and at Windmill mink farm in Dorset. In Finland, 400 foxes and 200 racoons were released from a fur farm. The offices of the Research Defence Society
Research Defence Society
The Research Defence Society was a British lobby group. At the end of 2008 the Research Defence Society merged with another UK organisation - the Coalition for Medical Progress to form Understanding Animal Research ....
in London were raided. Demonstrations were held outside British embassies and consulates around the world, laboratories were raided, and government buildings picketed.
Death threats
When it appeared that Horne might die, the Animal Rights MilitiaAnimal Rights Militia
The Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
(ARM) issued a statement through Robin Webb
Robin Webb
Robin Webb is an English animal rights activist. He is a former member of the ruling council of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals , and former director of Animal Aid...
of the Animal Liberation Press Office
Animal Liberation Press Office
Animal Liberation Press Offices relay anonymous communiques, photos and videos to the media about direct action undertaken by the Animal Liberation Front , Animal Rights Militia , Animal Liberation Brigade, Justice Department, and other leaderless resistance within the animal liberation movement...
, threatening to assassinate four named individuals and six unnamed scientists, should Horne die. The named targets were Colin Blakemore
Colin Blakemore
Professor Colin Blakemore, Ph.D., FRS, FMedSci, HonFSB, HonFRCP, is a British neurobiologist who is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and University of Warwick specialising in vision and the development of the brain. He was formerly Chief Executive of the British Medical...
, a British scientist who studies vision; Clive Page of King’s College, London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
, a professor of pulmonary
Lung
The lung is the essential respiration organ in many air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart...
pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
and chair of the animal science group of the British Biosciences Federation; Mark Matfield of the Research Defence Society
Research Defence Society
The Research Defence Society was a British lobby group. At the end of 2008 the Research Defence Society merged with another UK organisation - the Coalition for Medical Progress to form Understanding Animal Research ....
; and Christopher Brown, owner of Hillgrove Farm in Oxfordshire, who was breeding cats for laboratories.
Those on the ARM's list were given immediate police protection, which in some cases lasted years, and Special Branch stepped up its surveillance of activists, in particular of Robin Webb. Professor Clive Page told the BBC that he was in Italy when he heard his name was on the list. He had to return home to explain the situation to his family. "It's difficult to tell your children, 'Daddy's going to be murdered'," he said. The police wired his home up directly to Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
, he was advised to take different routes each day to work, and he had to speak to his children's schools about the possibility of abduction.
Moved back to prison
By day 63, Mann writes that Horne was deaf in one ear, blind in one eye, his liver was failing, and he was in considerable pain. A meeting was arranged for day 66 at noon with his supporters to show him the documents that were being faxed through by the Home OfficeHome Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
regarding offers the government might be willing to make. It was agreed that, if there was any substance to them, Horne would call off the strike. Early on the morning of 10 December 1998, on day 66, without notice to his supporters or family, Horne was moved out of hospital and back to Full Sutton Prison. The Home Office explained that, because he was refusing treatment, there was no need for him to be in hospital. Mann writes that Horne was hallucinating and could no longer remember why he was on hunger strike.
End of the hunger strike
There are two versions of why Horne ended the hunger strike. Mann writes that Horne called it off without explanation two days after being moved back to prison, and was promptly returned to the hospital. The media reported that a Labour MP had arranged for Michael Banner, the chair of the Animal Procedures CommitteeAnimal Procedures Committee
The Animal Procedures Committee advises the British Home Secretary on matters related to animal testing in the UK. The function of the committee was made a statutory requirement by the Animals Act 1986 , which mandates that it should have at least 12 members, excluding the chair...
, to agree to attend a meeting with Ian Cawsey, head of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Animal Welfare, to discuss animal testing practices in the UK. This was interpreted by Horne as a concession on the part of the government, and he agreed to start eating again on 13 December 1998. His friends suspect that something happened to him during the two days he was back in Full Sutton out of contact with them. Mann writes: "Whatever happened to him between leaving the hospital and returning to prison may never be known, but all those close to him suspect something did and he was never the same again."
The British media response to the end of the hunger strike was hostile. Newspapers focused on the period Horne had been drinking orange juice and sweet tea, writing that the hunger strike had been a fraud throughout. Mann writes that the media turned three days of trying to stabilise his condition with sips of sweet liquid into "68 days of feasting."
October 2001: 15 days
The hostile media response continued after his death. Kevin Toolis wrote in The Guardian:
"In life he was a nobody, a failed dustmanHe was buried in his home town of NorthamptonWaste collectorA waste collector is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and remove refuse and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal...
turned firebomber. But in death Barry Horne will rise up as the first true martyr of the most successful terrorist group Britain has ever known, the animal rights movementAnimal liberation movementThe animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and...
."
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
under an oak tree in a woodland cemetery, wearing a Northampton Town
Northampton Town F.C.
Northampton Town Football Club are an English professional football club based in Northampton, Northamptonshire. They currently play in Football League Two, the lowest league division, after being relegated from League One on the last day of the 2008–09 season...
football shirt. Seven hundred people attended the pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
funeral service and accompanied the coffin through the town, carrying a banner that read: "Labour lied, Barry died".
Further reading
- Barry Horne Tribute Website
- Letter from Barry Horne
- Account of the hunger strikes
- Remember Barry: November, Bite BackBite BackBite Back is a Malaysia-registered website and magazine that promotes the cause of the animal liberation movement, and specifically the Animal Liberation Front...
, first published in Arkangel Magazine (archived) - Barry Horne: Animal Liberationis", Animal Liberation FrontAnimal Liberation FrontThe Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
tribute page - Farrell, Stephen and Jenkins, Russell (1998). "Hunger striker's life in hands of a believer," The Times, 12 December 1998.
- Ford, Richard, and Elliott, Valerie (2001). "Fanatic who revelled in his notoriety," The Times, 6 November 2001.