Mel Broughton, a Speak animal rights campaigner, will stand trial from 2 June accused of offences against Oxford University.
Broughton was arrested in November 2007 following a police investigation into a fire at Queens College sports pavilion the previous year, and the discovery of improvised explosive devices at Templeton College in February 2007.
A police statement said that he has been charged with, “two counts of possessing or controlling explosives with intent to endanger life or injure property and two counts of having an article with intent to destroy or damage property.”
Broughton, 47, is one of the founding members of Speak, which has protested against the recently-opened animal testing centre on South Parks Road for a number of years.
In November 2006 fire-fighters spent an hour putting out the blaze in the roof of Queen’s College sports pavilion. Bomb disposal experts were brought in after the discovery of devices at Templeton College in 2007.
Speak claims that it aims to “[challenge] the government… to accountability and openness.” The use of violent terminology to describe animal rights activists is, it says, an attempt “to divert attention from the real perpetrators of violence who thus become the implied victims.”
In 2005 Robert Cogswell, a Speak spokesman, told This is Oxfordshire: “We do not condone the ALF’s actions but we do not condemn them either.”
Speak continue to hold frequent marches through Oxford and remain vocal about their opposition to the University’s policies on animal testing for biomedical research. They also protest on Broad Street at University degree days.
The group grew out of the success of ‘Stop Primate Experimentation at Cambridge’ (SPEAC) which stopped the construction of the Huntington Life Sciences Laboratory in 2004.
Pro-Test was formed in January 2006 in an effort to counter the views of SPEAK and defend the advantages of using animals for biomedical development projects.
