In December 2022, 18 members of Animal Rising broke into the Marshall BioResources beagle-breeding facility (MBR Acres) in Cambridgeshire and rescued 20 beagle puppies who otherwise faced a short life of torture in the name of animal testing.
They were eventually charged with burglary in June 2024, with plea hearings the following month. Sul Nowroz wrote a great piece for Real Media at that time exposing what goes on at MBR Acres and why Europe’s longest running animal rights protest camp, Camp Beagle, maintains its daily presence outside.
The first group faced trial at Cambridgeshire Crown Court in December, and were found guilty after a 12-day trial. Four of them were sentenced today. Three received 18-month suspended sentences, with 120 hours unpaid work and £860 prosecution costs each, and the fourth received a conditional discharge and £200 costs.
The second trial reportedly had more leeway to speak about what goes on inside the beagle factory and what fates lie in wait for animals supplied to laboratories. In January after a seven-day trial a jury at Cambridgeshire Crown Court found them not guilty in a unanimous verdict which only took two hours. The defendants relied on a defence of honesty, denying any of the elements of dishonesty which are required in order to prove guilt under the Theft Act 1968.
In the third trial at the end of last month, the jury at Peterborough Crown Court returned a guilty verdict and sentencing happened immediately the following day, with all four defendants avoiding immediate custodial sentences. Two were given suspended nine-month sentences and over a hundred hours of unpaid work. The other two received conditional discharges.
All the defendants took part in the action fully intending to face any consequences. It was carried out on the principle of Open Rescue. This is a means of rescuing animals from suffering and captivity inside laboratories, breeding facilities and industrial farms that does not hide the identity of the rescuing humans. They hand themselves in to the police once the animals have been taken to safety. It was introduced as a tactic by Animal Liberation Victoria in Australia to show nonviolence and transparent tactics by those taking action for animals.
The final trial begins next Wednesday.
Check out Sul Nowroz’s excellent pieces on MBR Acres.
A petition to the UK Government triggered a response in December that “The use of animals for development of products for human use remains necessary. The Government therefore does not agree to end testing on dogs and other animals for testing and research purposes”, but it has since passed the threshold of 100,000 which should trigger a debate. The petition is still open to signatures until the end of April.
A private petition by Animal Rising asking the Home Office to close down MBR Acres has reached more than 175,000 at time of writing.
