Veal protests could overwhelm ports

Behind the lines: amid growing unrest and `a tinderbox atmosphere' come new disclosures on testing

Unrest over animal welfare will overwhelm Britain's ports unless ministers end the export of live calves for veal, the Government was warned yesterday. As disturbances continued around the country, with fights, arrests and mass demonstrations in the Midlands, the West Country and East Anglia, the Agriculture Minister, William Waldegrave, admitted that "there is a tinderbox atmosphere out there". Labour MPs urged him to reconsider his refusal to ban the veal calves trade. He has said he cannot do so without waiting for general EU agreement.

Fury on the picket lines followed the sabotaging by Tory MPs on Friday of a parliamentary move to outlaw the veal trade, in a Private Member's Bill sponsored by Eric Martlew, Labour MP for Carlisle. Protesters turned out in force again yesterday, at the end of a week that had seen the death of an animal rights campaigner, the military-style storming of a veal-trade businessman's home, dozens of arrests at ports and airports, and letterbombs thought to have been sent by animal rights extremists.

Mr Martlew, whose Protection of Calves (Export) Bill was talked out by Tory MPs in the Commons, said: "They have killed the Bill, but they have not killed the issue. Especially as we get into summer and the weather gets better, more and more people will demonstrate. The pressure will be intense. There will not be an airport or a sea- port that will accept this trade.

"The way the Government treated my Bill was a boon for the extremists. It was provocative. This is a volatile situation. I don't want this campaign taken over by extremists, but the Tories have helped them by their arrogant attitude."

Mr Waldegrave accused the Opposition of falsely "hyping up" the idea that Britain could act alone to end the veal-crate farming system. But Mr Martlew demanded ministers immediately announce an interim ban on the live export of veal calves, followed by confirmatory legislation. Any legal challenge could be resisted by invoking Article 36 of the Treaty of Rome - the "morality clause" which allows member countries to halt cruel trades - he argued.

A High Court case being heard this week may decide the future of the live animal export trade. On 6 January, Dover Harbour Board, fearing that mass protests could disrupt the life of the port, amended its rules to allow livestock cargoes to be turned away. An exporter was granted leave for a judicial review of the decision, which will take place on Wednesday.

In Plymouth yesterday, police arrested two demonstrators when they tried to prevent two heavily escorted convoys from entering Millbay docks. The convoys comprised 15 lorries carrying calves and sheep. A thousand people virtually took over the centre ofColchester, Essex, to protest at the use of the nearby port of Brightlingsea for livestock export. In Warwickshire, the first of 45 animal rights activists arrested on Friday, when protesters halted an airlift from Coventry airport, appeared in court. Later, activists and police fought outside the airport. Demonstrators surrounded a police van and lay in front of the wheels. One man was arrested.

Police warned those involved in the meat industry to look out for letterbombs, after three incendiary devices were sent through the post in Yorkshire and Northamptonshire, the first evidence of a feared violent backlash in the wake of the death of the campaigner Jill Phipps at Coventry airport.

The father of Ms Phipps, her boyfriend, and young sister were among those who appeared in Leamington magistrates' court yesterday. Bob Phipps, a 70-year-old retired postman, pleaded not guilty to trespass, Lesley Phipps pleaded guilty.

The two were arrested on Friday and charged, after being held by police near Coventry airport runway. "I promised myself that I would take Jill's place on the picket line," Mr Phipps said. "She was such a beautiful girl. It keeps welling up [that] I'll never be able to put my arms around her again."

Jill Phipps' boyfriend, Justin Timson, 26, was also in court charged with trespass and damaging the nose-cone of an Antonov cargo plane being used by the Rugby transport company Phoenix Aviation to carry live calves to Europe.

Along with two other animal rights activists, charged with assaulting a police officer and with public order offences, he was banned from going within a mile of the airport until his case is over.

Mr Timson said: "It will not stop me protesting." He would join a vigil outside the home of the managing director of Phoenix, Chris Barrett-Jolley, which was attacked by 40 animal rights demonstrators after Ms Phipps's death.

Members of the Phipps family were allowed by the magistrates to return to the shrine for their daughter near the airport gates, after protests that the one-mile exclusion zone imposed on other defendants restricted their civil liberties.

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