A CHAIN of laboratories engaged in breeding animals for medical research has won a High Court injunction banning protesters wearing bloodstained clothing outside its offices.

Harlan Laboratories UK is the subject of demonstrations at four sites it operates in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire.

Protests by the National Anti-Vivisection Alliance (NAVA) and backed by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) began in April, and have been marked by activists sporting blood-stained costumes, which they say represent the "slaughter" of animals.

The protests at Shardlow in Derbyshire, Belton in Leicestershire, Wyton in Cambridgeshire and Blackthorn in Oxfordshire were curtailed by an injunction issued last month under the Protection From Harassment Act.

It limited the protests at each site to one a week and cut the numbers allowed to demonstrate to 20. It also banned protesters wearing bloodstained attire.

The High Court yesterday relaxed some of the restrictions on the protesters but, after heated argument, refused to allow bloodstained clothing.

Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, representing Harlan, told Mrs Justice Nicola Davies the company's employees were entitled to "respect" as they go about their work and that being confronted with blood-spattered campaigners amounted to harassment.

He told the court in London: "Most of our employees are concerned with the husbandry of animals. We have a very small research establishment but we don't conduct any vivisection. We are trying to stop the wearing of this bloodstained clothing.

"We have the right to respect. We are breeding animals for medical research, which is both legal and, we believe, moral. The defendants think it should not be legal and is not moral and that is where we differ.

"We find it very objectionable and potentially harassing when our workers come out of the factory gate – in which they have been working hard, lawfully and morally – to be faced with protesters accusing them of something they don't do, which is abusing animals and practising vivisection experiments on them.

"When you wear blood-stained clothing outside our premises, you are calling our workers animal abusers."

Luke Steele, a spokesman for NAVA, told the judge: "It is the case for the defence that Harlan Laboratories are involved in slaughtering animals at these sites and a number of animals are killed on site each year that cannot be sold.

"The bloodstained clothing is there to represent the fact that Harlan are involved in slaughtering animals and supplying them for medical research."

Mr Steele said the campaigners were exercising the right of public protest and the right to draw attention to their cause through wearing costumes.

Mrs Justice Nicola Davies said: "I accept that the defendants have a right to protest, but that must be balanced with other rights.

"The workers leaving the factory and seeing bloodstained clothing are capable of being caused harassment and distress," she said

The judge directed that the ban be maintained until a full hearing, set for October, but relaxed other restrictions on the protests, increasing the maximum number of demonstrators to 25 and extending their permitted stay from two to three hours.

She also granted permission for a bigger protest, by up to 100 campaigners, on August 27 at the Wyton site.