Heather Nicholson
Encyclopedia
Heather Nicholson also known as Heather James, is a British animal rights
activist. She is best known for having co-founded three pivotal animal rights campaigns in the UK in the 1990s. In 1997, Consort Kennels
in Hereford, which bred beagles for animal-testing labs, was closed after a ten-month campaign led by Nicholson and her husband at the time, Greg Avery
. In 1999, Save the Hill Grove Cats
closed Hill Grove Farm in Oxfordshire, which bred cats for laboratories, after a two-year campaign, also led by Nicholson and Avery. In the same year, Nicholson, Avery, and Natasha Dellemagne set up Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
(SHAC) with the aim of closing Huntingdon Life Sciences
(HLS), a contract animal-testing
company based in Cambridgeshire.
Nicholson was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in January 2009 for conspiracy to blackmail
in connection with the SHAC campaign. Six other senior SHAC activists, including Avery and Dellemagne, were jailed for the same offences; all seven were alleged by police to be key figures within the Animal Liberation Front
. Nicholson pleaded not guilty to the charges. She expects to be released in November 2012, taking into account time spent on remand
.
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Nicholson was born in Dunvant
and raised in Killay
, Swansea
, the daughter of George Barwick, a teacher and vegan, and his wife, Shirley Barwick, née Nicholson. She attended Olchfa Comprehensive School
. A life-long ovo vegetarian
, then vegan
, she spent time as a teenager working for the RSPCA in Singleton Park, Swansea, but left because she couldn't bear to see the animals euthanized. Her mother told the Western Mail: "She used to come home crying her eyes out because they had a policy then of putting down healthy dogs they could not find homes for."
. During a similar demonstration at Coventry airport, she met her future husband, Greg Avery
, another animal rights activist. She joined Avery to found a campaign against Consort, a company in Ross-on-Wye that bred beagles for laboratories, which closed 10 months later. Nicholson and Avery co-founded a subsequent campaign, Save the Hill Grove Cats, which saw the closure two years later of Hill Grove Farm near Oxford, which bred laboratory cats. The couple then set up SHAC in 1999, along with Natasha Constance Dellemagne, a friend of Nicholson's, with the aim of forcing Huntingdon Life Sciences to capitulate using the Consort and Hill Grove tactics. The company was saved when the British government stepped in to provide it with banking facilities, after the UK's major banks severed ties with it as a result of the campaign.
Nicholson and Avery divorced in or around 2002, but continued to live and work together. In 2002, Avery married Natasha Dellemagne, now known as Natasha Avery, and the three of them lived for a time together in a rent-free cottage in Woking, Surrey. The cottage was owned by Virginia Jane Steele, also known as Alexander, a wealthy supporter of the animal rights movement.
Huntingdon Life Sciences is Europe's largest contract animal-testing company, testing everything from pesticides to drugs, on behalf of a wide range of commercial clients, on around 75,000 animals a year, including rats, rabbits, pigs, dogs, and primates.
HLS was the subject of an undercover investigation by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
in 1989, which alleged that workers routinely mishandled the animals, shouted at them, threw them into their cages, and mocked them for having fits during toxicity tests. Nicholson, Avery, and Dellemagne set up SHAC in November 1999, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
obtained undercover footage showed HLS staff punching, shaking, and laughing at beagles in the company's main laboratory in Cambridge, England, while, in the HLS New Jersey facility in the U.S., staff were shown dissecting a twitching monkey who was still alive, and who one of the technicians feared might be insufficiently anaesthetized—he can be heard saying, "This guy could be out a little more." HLS threatened PETA with legal action over the footage, causing PETA to end its campaign, and SHAC took over.
The SHAC campaign was marked by the practice of secondary and tertiary targeting, whereby not only primary targets and their families were subjected to intimidation, but also anyone who did business with them, along with their families and business contacts. A pub where one of the primary targets went to relax, for example, might become a secondary target, with tertiary targets developing among anyone who supplied the pub with goods and services. Nicholson and Avery had used similar tactics during previous campaigns.
Being targeted meant crowds of protesters standing outside the home, blowing whistles and letting off fireworks throughout the night, spraying graffiti on property, breaking windows, spreading rumours to neighbours that the target was a paedophile, and sending hoax bombs and obscene mail. Threats of violence were sent, signed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or Animal Rights Militia
. Action against a target would stop only when they told SHAC in writing that they had severed ties with the person or company that had brought them to SHAC's attention; their statements would be posted on the SHAC website, and the threat against them was withdrawn. The aim was the total economic and social isolation of Huntingdon Life Sciences. The police and courts regarded the SHAC campaign as an example of "urban terrorism" and "a vehicle used to terrorize ordinary decent traders carrying out perfectly lawful businesses." Nicholson described it as "a straightforward battle between good and evil, mercy and money, compassion and cruelty."
(ASBO), an injunction instructing her to stay away from animal research laboratories. She was not allowed to go within 500 metres of Huntingdon Life Sciences's facilities in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, or contact the owners, shareholders, employees, or their families. She reportedly breached the injunction in 2006 and was held on remand. Also in 2006, she was jailed for affray for assaulting a family, including a 75-year-old woman, whose car displayed a sticker supporting fox hunting
.
In January 2009, after pleading not guilty at Winchester Crown Court, Nicholson was jailed for 11 years for conspiracy to blackmail during the SHAC campaign. Police said they had obtained evidence to secure the conviction by bugging a 2007 meeting in a cottage in Moorcote, near Hook, Hampshire, attended by Nicholson and six other SHAC activists, as well as hired cars they had used. The bugging was part of Operation Achilles, a police operation against animal rights activists that led to 32 arrests in May 2007, carried out by 700 officers in England, Amsterdam, and Belgium. Nicholson was in Swansea visiting her parents when she heard about the arrests. She drove to her home in Eversley, Hampshire to give herself up, where she was arrested and denied bail.
The court heard that Nicholson was among seven people who made false paedophile accusations, caused criminal damage and used bomb hoaxes to intimidate companies associated with HLS. Two hundred and seventy companies severed ties to HLS as a result of becoming secondary and tertiary targets of SHAC. Avery and Dellemagne were jailed for nine years, and four other activists received sentences of between four and eight years. Nicholson was also served with an ASBO, restricting future contact with companies targeted in the campaign. After sentencing, one activist, Adrian Radford, also known as Ian Farmer, told The Sunday Times that he had infiltrated SHAC on behalf of the police. He said that Nicholson had acted as a courier within SHAC, transporting cash to animal rights activists in other parts of the country.
In an interview with Wales on Sunday, Nicholson defended her role in SHAC. "We were right to take a stand against big business torturing animals for profit." She told the newspaper it was, in her view, incredible that, as someone protesting to end cruelty, she had been jailed with child killers such as Rosemary West
. "Even the judge said I was not accused of actually intimidating anyone. It was just this amazing charge they came up with, 'conspiracy to blackmail,' that was some kind of catch-all." A spokesman for Huntingdon Life Sciences told The Guardian after Nicholson's trial: "Freedom of expression and lawful protest are important rights, but so is the right to conduct vital biomedical research or to support organisations that perform such research without being harassed and threatened." Nicholson's father defended her activism. "She formed SHAC ... simply because the thought of animals being tortured for financial gain broke her heart," he told the Western Mail after learning of her sentence. "The campaign group ... had every right to stick up for trusting animals being subjected to pain. In my view, she’s a saint." Her parents are now looking after her four rescue dogs.
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. She is best known for having co-founded three pivotal animal rights campaigns in the UK in the 1990s. In 1997, Consort Kennels
Consort beagles
The Consort beagles campaign was founded in 1996 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, with a view to closing Consort Kennels in Hereford, a commercial breeder of beagles for animal testing laboratories.-Background:...
in Hereford, which bred beagles for animal-testing labs, was closed after a ten-month campaign led by Nicholson and her husband at the time, Greg Avery
Greg Avery
Greg Avery is a British animal rights activist. He is chiefly known as a founding member of several influential animal rights campaigns — focusing on opposition to the animal testing industry — that have dramatically altered the nature of the animal rights movement in the UK...
. In 1999, Save the Hill Grove Cats
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...
closed Hill Grove Farm in Oxfordshire, which bred cats for laboratories, after a two-year campaign, also led by Nicholson and Avery. In the same year, Nicholson, Avery, and Natasha Dellemagne set up Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences , Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates...
(SHAC) with the aim of closing 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...
(HLS), a contract 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...
company based in Cambridgeshire.
Nicholson was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in January 2009 for conspiracy to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
in connection with the SHAC campaign. Six other senior SHAC activists, including Avery and Dellemagne, were jailed for the same offences; all seven were alleged by police to be key figures within 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...
. Nicholson pleaded not guilty to the charges. She expects to be released in November 2012, taking into account time spent on remand
Detention of suspects
The detention of suspects is the process of keeping a person who has been arrested in a police-cell, remand prison or other detention centre before trial or sentencing. One criticism of pretrial detention is that eventual acquittal can be a somewhat hollow victory, in that there is no way to...
.
Early life
Dunvant
Dunvant is a suburban district in the City and County of Swansea, Wales, and falls within the Dunvant ward. It is situated in a valley some 4.5 miles west of Swansea city centre.-History:...
and raised in Killay
Killay
Killay is the name of a suburb and local government community in Swansea, Wales. Killay has its own community council. The village is set high above sea level, about 3.5 miles west of Swansea city centre....
, Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
, the daughter of George Barwick, a teacher and vegan, and his wife, Shirley Barwick, née Nicholson. She attended Olchfa Comprehensive School
Olchfa School
Olchfa School is the largest comprehensive school in Swansea, South Wales, with approximately 2000 pupils. It provides secondary education for GCSE and tertiary education leading to A-Level qualifications...
. A life-long ovo vegetarian
Ovo vegetarianism
Ovo vegetarianism is a type of vegetarianism which allows for the consumption of eggs; unlike lacto-ovo vegetarianism, no dairy products are permitted...
, then vegan
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
, she spent time as a teenager working for the RSPCA in Singleton Park, Swansea, but left because she couldn't bear to see the animals euthanized. Her mother told the Western Mail: "She used to come home crying her eyes out because they had a policy then of putting down healthy dogs they could not find homes for."
Consort beagles and Save the Hill Grove Cats
Nicholson became involved in the animal rights movement when she was 26, after attending a demonstration at Swansea airport to protest against live animal exportsLive export
Live export is the transport of living farm animals usually across either state or national borders.Animal charities say that thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, thirst, suffocation, and crush injuries. The National Hog Farmer reports that 420,000 pigs are crippled and...
. During a similar demonstration at Coventry airport, she met her future husband, Greg Avery
Greg Avery
Greg Avery is a British animal rights activist. He is chiefly known as a founding member of several influential animal rights campaigns — focusing on opposition to the animal testing industry — that have dramatically altered the nature of the animal rights movement in the UK...
, another animal rights activist. She joined Avery to found a campaign against Consort, a company in Ross-on-Wye that bred beagles for laboratories, which closed 10 months later. Nicholson and Avery co-founded a subsequent campaign, Save the Hill Grove Cats, which saw the closure two years later of Hill Grove Farm near Oxford, which bred laboratory cats. The couple then set up SHAC in 1999, along with Natasha Constance Dellemagne, a friend of Nicholson's, with the aim of forcing Huntingdon Life Sciences to capitulate using the Consort and Hill Grove tactics. The company was saved when the British government stepped in to provide it with banking facilities, after the UK's major banks severed ties with it as a result of the campaign.
Nicholson and Avery divorced in or around 2002, but continued to live and work together. In 2002, Avery married Natasha Dellemagne, now known as Natasha Avery, and the three of them lived for a time together in a rent-free cottage in Woking, Surrey. The cottage was owned by Virginia Jane Steele, also known as Alexander, a wealthy supporter of the animal rights movement.
SHAC
HLS was the subject of an undercover investigation by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments...
in 1989, which alleged that workers routinely mishandled the animals, shouted at them, threw them into their cages, and mocked them for having fits during toxicity tests. Nicholson, Avery, and Dellemagne set up SHAC in November 1999, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...
obtained undercover footage showed HLS staff punching, shaking, and laughing at beagles in the company's main laboratory in Cambridge, England, while, in the HLS New Jersey facility in the U.S., staff were shown dissecting a twitching monkey who was still alive, and who one of the technicians feared might be insufficiently anaesthetized—he can be heard saying, "This guy could be out a little more." HLS threatened PETA with legal action over the footage, causing PETA to end its campaign, and SHAC took over.
The SHAC campaign was marked by the practice of secondary and tertiary targeting, whereby not only primary targets and their families were subjected to intimidation, but also anyone who did business with them, along with their families and business contacts. A pub where one of the primary targets went to relax, for example, might become a secondary target, with tertiary targets developing among anyone who supplied the pub with goods and services. Nicholson and Avery had used similar tactics during previous campaigns.
Being targeted meant crowds of protesters standing outside the home, blowing whistles and letting off fireworks throughout the night, spraying graffiti on property, breaking windows, spreading rumours to neighbours that the target was a paedophile, and sending hoax bombs and obscene mail. Threats of violence were sent, signed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or 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:...
. Action against a target would stop only when they told SHAC in writing that they had severed ties with the person or company that had brought them to SHAC's attention; their statements would be posted on the SHAC website, and the threat against them was withdrawn. The aim was the total economic and social isolation of Huntingdon Life Sciences. The police and courts regarded the SHAC campaign as an example of "urban terrorism" and "a vehicle used to terrorize ordinary decent traders carrying out perfectly lawful businesses." Nicholson described it as "a straightforward battle between good and evil, mercy and money, compassion and cruelty."
Convictions and injunctions
Nicholson has said she has received 50 injunctions in connection with her activism. In January 2005, she was given a five-year Anti-Social Behaviour OrderAnti-Social Behaviour Order
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order or ASBO is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders, introduced in the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, were designed to correct minor incidents that...
(ASBO), an injunction instructing her to stay away from animal research laboratories. She was not allowed to go within 500 metres of Huntingdon Life Sciences's facilities in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, or contact the owners, shareholders, employees, or their families. She reportedly breached the injunction in 2006 and was held on remand. Also in 2006, she was jailed for affray for assaulting a family, including a 75-year-old woman, whose car displayed a sticker supporting fox hunting
Fox hunting
Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...
.
2009 conviction
The court heard that Nicholson was among seven people who made false paedophile accusations, caused criminal damage and used bomb hoaxes to intimidate companies associated with HLS. Two hundred and seventy companies severed ties to HLS as a result of becoming secondary and tertiary targets of SHAC. Avery and Dellemagne were jailed for nine years, and four other activists received sentences of between four and eight years. Nicholson was also served with an ASBO, restricting future contact with companies targeted in the campaign. After sentencing, one activist, Adrian Radford, also known as Ian Farmer, told The Sunday Times that he had infiltrated SHAC on behalf of the police. He said that Nicholson had acted as a courier within SHAC, transporting cash to animal rights activists in other parts of the country.
In an interview with Wales on Sunday, Nicholson defended her role in SHAC. "We were right to take a stand against big business torturing animals for profit." She told the newspaper it was, in her view, incredible that, as someone protesting to end cruelty, she had been jailed with child killers such as Rosemary West
Rosemary West
Rosemary Pauline "Rose" West is a British serial killer, now an inmate at HMP Low Newton, Brasside, Durham, after being convicted of 10 murders in 1995...
. "Even the judge said I was not accused of actually intimidating anyone. It was just this amazing charge they came up with, 'conspiracy to blackmail,' that was some kind of catch-all." A spokesman for Huntingdon Life Sciences told The Guardian after Nicholson's trial: "Freedom of expression and lawful protest are important rights, but so is the right to conduct vital biomedical research or to support organisations that perform such research without being harassed and threatened." Nicholson's father defended her activism. "She formed SHAC ... simply because the thought of animals being tortured for financial gain broke her heart," he told the Western Mail after learning of her sentence. "The campaign group ... had every right to stick up for trusting animals being subjected to pain. In my view, she’s a saint." Her parents are now looking after her four rescue dogs.
Further reading
- Huntingdon Life Sciences
- Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
- Inside HLS.com, links to five investigations into Huntingdon Life Sciences