Animal rights activist Mel Broughton was one of the speakers at the 50 Years of Resistance rally at Grosvenor Square on Saturday 7 July. They spoke out about the campaigns they had been part of since 1968, the year when huge anti-Vietnam War protests outside the American Embassy led to the then Labour government setting up the Special Demonstration Squad.
The SDS and other secret units have spied on at least 1000 groups. After the spycops scandal broke nearly eight years ago it was revealed that undercover police targeted women for intimate relationships in order to bolster their credibility, used the identities of dead children to establish their “legend”, routinely fitted people up with wrongful convictions and colluded with illegal blacklisting of workers who fought for rights to union membership or safe working conditions.
At the rally Mel said: “Our success is measured by the fact that we’re still here now. Spycops or no spycops, the one thing they will never stamp out is our will to speak out for those who do not have a voice.”
As an animal rights campaigner since the eighties, Mel will have been in contact with many types of infiltrator: undercover police, informants and corporate spies. For a few years he was involved in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, the group which tried to close down the notorious vivisector Huntingdon Life Sciences. He then co-founded Stop Primate Experiments at Cambridge (SPEAC) – which successfully prevented a laboratory being built in the city – before moving on to a similar campaign in Oxford called SPEAK – the Voice for the Animals.
SHAC and SPEAK were the most high profile anti-vivisection groups of their day and inevitably became the focus of New Labour’s determination to destroy radical anti-vivisectionism. This meant millions of pounds poured into surveillance, infiltration, disruption and a propaganda war to portray campaigners as thugs and terrorists who were a danger to people.
After contractors downed tools and stopped work on the lab in July 2004, the government promised to underwrite the building costs by up to £100 million and gave Oxford University logistical support which eventually led to building work beginning again in December 2005. The laboratory finally opened three years later, millions of pounds over budget. The Speak website’s damning verdict is as follows:
The result of the SPEAK campaign against Oxford University’s new animal torture lab is that it has cost millions of pounds over the original estimate, the finished building is shoddily built due to the employment of sub-standard builders, the operational use of the lab was delayed for three years, the subject of vivisection and the horrors it inflicts on animals has been a constant talking point in and around Oxford and elsewhere, and anyone else who might have considered building any other new animal research labs in the UK will have been left in no doubt that it would be a bad idea.
As the public face of SPEAK, Mel was the target of state repression. In December 2007 he was accused of two ALF arson attacks on Oxford University and charged with conspiracy to blackmail and keeping an explosive substance with intent (fire lighters). He strenuously denied the charges and at his trial the following year his defence produced a recording in which police officers discussed “getting him” and waging a “secret war” against him. Mel was acquitted of the blackmail and explosive charges but later convicted of conspiracy to commit arson and sentenced to 10 years.
While campaigning Mel would have been in contact with a number of spycops. National Public Order Intelligence Unit agent Ritchie Clarke was at the front of the first SPEAK march and was described as “making a beeline” for him. Clarke also regularly attended weekly protests at Oxford University at which Mel was present. Another NPOIU spy, Gary Rayner, also went to those protests. Rayner had a partner named Abigail, who is believed to have been another undercover police officer, and they befriended Mel. Shortly before his arrest in 2007, Mel stayed with Gary and Abigail for one week.
Mel is now off probation and once again protesting against Oxford University with SPEAK. There are demonstrations every Thursday. Details: info@speakcampaigns.org
For further information on spycops mentioned in this article, see the Who were the spies? page of this blog which includes Ritchie Clarke and Gary Rayner along with links to their profiles on Powerbase.
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