Animal activists sent 'bomb'

(First Edition)

ANIMAL rights activists sent a suspect package to the home of a pregnant manager who works for the pharmaceutical giant Glaxo, police said yesterday.

It was the second time in less than a week they have targeted the home of Karen Gardner, 28, in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Earlier her house had been daubed with paint.

A Hertfordshire Police spokesman said the eight-month pregnant PR manager was told in a phone call that a bomb would be delivered to her home.

Army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion on the package, which was left in the road outside the house on Monday night after being taken there in a taxi. The device was found to be harmless. No one was injured.

The Animal Rights Militia, a splinter group of the Animal Liberation Front who believe that violence is justified in the campaign against vivisection, said they had planned the hoax. Glaxo, which is building new laboratories in Stevenage, has received several threats from animal rights activists.