SHAC Interviewed: Greg Avery Speaks Out

By Claudette Vaughan

Q.  What's the Greg Avery story?

A. I have been involved in the A.R. movement since I was at school over 20 years ago. I first became involved with a group called the Northern Animal Liberation League who carried out some famous raids in the early 80's proving the link between labs and stolen pets by rescuing a black labrador called Blackie from Sheffield University. Due to the publicity of this raid the owners of Blackie came forward and he was reunited with his owners who went onto tell how Blackie had been snatched from outside their house. In 1996 I helped form a group called The Consort Beagle campaign with the aim of closing down a beagle breeding farm (All sold to labs) called Consort Kennels. They had about 800 beagles on site. After an intense 10 month campaign, during which Consort was raided 3 times with 26 beagles being rescued,  Consort closed seeing 200 beagles rehomed. In late 1997 a group of us formed Save the Hillgrove Cats to close Britain's last remaining breeder of cats for vivisection Hillgrove Cat Farm. After a furious 18 month campaign Hillgrove buckled and closed with 800 cats rehomed by the RSPCA. During the campaign the police spent £5.4 million protecting Hillgrove. in November 1999 we formed Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty with the single aim of closing Huntingdon Life Sciences. On 3 separate occasions the government has had to rescue Huntingdon from imminent closure and that brings us to today where the battle to close Huntingdon rages as intensely as ever.   There are clear signs that the spin off is beginning to damage the whole industry with the last records showing that funding in vivisection has gone down £100 million and major companies threatening to quit the UK unless SHAC are stopped. The government have changed the laws several times to make life more difficult but these laws have had zero impact on the campaign. Onwards with the battle to close the hell hole that is Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Q. Can you talk about the smear campaign against the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign and especially against you Greg?

A. The way you judge how effective you are being is by the way your enemy reacts. So the more they try to discredit us the better it is as far as we are concerned.   As for the stuff they say about me personally, it just makes me and those around me stronger as we see it for what it is ...pathetic and desperate. The worst thing would no reaction because that would mean we would be having no effect

Q. How did you initially get involved with the SHAC campaign and direct action itself?

A.  I have been involved in the animal rights movement for over 20 years and over that time have come to realise that doing demos all over the place was ineffective. We needed to concentrate our resources. So we started by targeting a beagle breeding farm called Consort Kennels.   These people bred dogs for labs and had about 800 on site at any one time.  After an intensive 10 month campaign with daily demos at the farm, 3 raids etc, they buckled under the pressure and closed with 200 beagles released and rehomed by various groups. We then moved onto the last remaining breeder of cats for labs in the UK Hillgrove cat farm near Oxford and again after a massive and intense campaign they buckled under the pressure and after 18 months they closed seeing 800 cats rehomed by the RSPCA. We then moved onto Europe's largest animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences.

 Q. We who have seen the Huntingdon tapes that were taken undercover at HLS are thunder-struck by the technicians laughing at the callousness of the cruelty. Do you know whatever happened to the technicians caught on tape punching the dogs and performing other casual cruelties? 

A. The two technicians you see on the tapes punching the beagles Mash and Waters were sacked and sentenced by the local court to a pathetic 60 hours community service. All the others you see on the tapes are still there. None of these people you see in Michelle Rokke's investigation inside Huntingdon's lab in New Jersey, U.S.A were sacked and the head of Huntingdon at the time called the horrific tapes tomfoolery!! Incredible!

 Q. Heather James spoke at a rally recently and said Huntingdon Life Sciences rang SHAC on the telephone with recorded messages of a monkey screaming in the background. Is this true?

A. Yes that is correct.  We also have to cope with receiving many, many death threats. You know when we have particularly hurt a multi-national company like Huntingdon with the kinds of tactics we use, death threats against us increase and they try to get to us.

Q. What kind of people are they that work at animal laboratories? 

A.  The people who work in labs are perverts and are too far gone.   All we can ever do is hit them head on and destroy their businesses. The whole point of the SHAC campaign has been about taking the decisions out of the killers hands and going for their bankers, insurers, suppliers etc.    Now these people only care about money and if we can show them that investing in animal cruelty is a bad investment and has financial implications then we have a lever against animal abuse larger than we could ever imagine. No animal abuse company can operate as an island as they all need essential services from people who are not part of their industry.  These companies don't care whether the animal abusers stay in business or not as they have no allegiance to them but to us this is a massive tool in our favour. What happens if no one will or is extremely reluctant to invest in, build, supply labs and lab animal companies where does that leave them?

Q. One of the problems the animal liberation movement faces in Australia are lawyers who aren't engaged in the process or committed to the animal rights struggle. You have to wonder if some of these lawyers received their law degree off the back of a Weeties box.  Do you face the same problem in England?

A. The lawyers we have had have been good but like all lawyers they are expensive. Also, and this is the main point, lawyers can never hope to know the issues as well as we do.  At present, an activist who has a law degree is doing the legal technical stuff for us and we do the issues-related stuff as what happened when and how etc etc. Simon who is doing the legal stuff for us is doing a brilliant job and has won many legal points.   So the court case is costing Huntingdon hundreds of thousands of pounds and will end up costing them 1-3 million pounds and it is costing us er...nothing!

Q. Does SHAC have a plan in place to protect itself against law enforcement harassment?

A. This is something that is every day and is part and parcel of our job. Our plan is a simple one and it is that they must never slow us down in our objectives. The polices' main aim is to disrupt us.   We must not let this happen. The last time we were raided they took all our computers, cameras etc but within 2 hours everything was replaced and we were up and running again from back up systems.  

Q. How does the protest camps operate outside HLS?  By the looks of the photographs on the web there are many people from all walks of life across the board, proud to be participating in SHAC's activities.

A. Because of draconian injunctions we are no longer allowed to hold protest camps and we are not allowed to protest freely outside Huntingdon. This stamping on people's democratic human rights has angered the A.L.F and has seen a massive 500% rise in A.L.F attacks against Huntingdon and their associates since the injunctions. They have admitted in the media that in real terms injunctions have made things worse for them

 Q. What effect did Barry Horne's death have on you as an animal rights activist and how has it affected the English movement?

A. Barry Horne was and will always be a massive inspiration to the animal rights movement across the world. I cannot think of one other person who has inspired so many activists in the animal rights movement. He is sorely missed and will always be loved.

Q. What inspires you?

A. People who fight for what they believe in inspires me. Everything from people in liberation struggles of the past and present who have died or gone through immense suffering all the way through to soldiers who escaped during World War 2. The grandparents of my wife Natasha both fought in the French resistance and her grandfather received many medals for his resistance work. Both her grandparents didn't see each other for nearly 5 years and didn't know if the other was still alive but they both fought savagely for what they knew was right. This enables us as modern day activists to put things into perspective and also provides us with an important historical context.

Q. How can we help your campaign?

A.  Simple...Go for any company that is connected to Huntingdon Life Sciences in your country or area. Demonstrate outside of their offices and never give up until they vow never to deal with Huntingdon Life Sciences. 

Q. Critics of SHAC have said SHAC has forced multi-national biotech industry offshore and into developing countries. How do you respond to this?

A. That is a crude and naive criticism/assumption and also illogical. Should we not campaign against child abuse because it may drive it abroad? The fact of the matter is this.   Animal abuse occurs in every corner of the globe and is happening now.  Wherever we find it we must fight it.   I remember people saying the same thing during the fur campaigns in the UK during the 1980's. These same people forget to mention that fur farming was already a massive industry abroad in any case. What happened during the fur wars here is that all the department stores took their fur out and cities and towns became fur free. This inspired activists from other countries to tackle the fur industry in their own countries because they saw and thoughts "If the Brits can do it, then so can we too." So in fact all this means is you destroy that particular animal abuse from a company or industry in your own country and in doing so can create a template or ideas for other countries to pick up on and are further inspired to tackle that same issue in their own country.

As serendipity would have it, just after completing this interview SBS aired a documentary  featuring this very subject. A recent survey showed the English corporate community relocate their businesses overseas and off-shore for one reason only.   Smith Cline-Beecham, for example, said it was 80%  cheaper to operate its business overseas in a developing country than in England.

SHAC are always in need of financial assistance to fund campaigns, produce tapes and educational literature.  Please contact Greg Avery at:  info@shac.net if you can assist financially or want more information.