INSIDE SCHNEWS: SPEAK ACTIVIST GETS TEN YEARS

An animal rights activist who police promised to wage ‘a dirty war’ against received a ten year sentence this week after his third trial for the same offence.

Mel Broughton was initially convicted for conspiracy to commit arson in February 2009 and then successfully appealed the decision (see SchNEWS 715). Unfortunately the Court of Appeal demanded a retrial. Mel is involved in animal rights group Speak, campaigning against Oxford University’s animal lab. He is accused of causing £14,000 of damage by arson to Queen’s College cricket pavilion back in 2006. The two and a half years he has already spent in custody will be knocked off his sentence.

In 2007 senior police officers were caught on tape saying they were going to ‘wage a dirty war’ against the Speak campaign and ‘prosecute the shit out of them’ (see SchNEWS 590).

* For more see www.arprisoners.org/mel-broughton