Animal rights chief given 14 years for campaign of terror
The Times
20 December 1994
Kathryn Knight
A leader of the Animal Liberation Front who waged a four-year campaign of sabotage against the meat and poultry industry was jailed for 14 years yesterday.
Supporters in the public gallery at the Old Bailey shouted obscenities at the judge and cried "The war goes on" as Keith Mann, 28, was sentenced. Mr Justice Mitchell said that he was a "determined and dangerous fanatic" whose tactics "bore the hallmarks of terrorism".
Mann, who escaped police custody last year and remained free for ten months, was finally captured by a police dog in April after fleeing from detectives who raided the animal sanctuary where he had been working.
Anthony Gee, QC, for the prosecution, said that Mann, of Bury, Greater Manchester, appeared to be the ringleader of the Animal Liberation Front, whose objective was to "cause as much economic damage as possible to companies and individuals perceived to be abusers of animals".
Mann, who has previous convictions for disrupting fox-hunting and hare-coursing meetings, had admitted criminal damage, attempted arson, incitement to commit damage and theft, escaping custody and possession of explosive substances between June 1990 and April this year.
He was arrested three years ago after a long police investigation into the ALF. In June 1990 he took part in an attack on an abattoir in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in which three lorries were destroyed. After the raid, the court was told, he sent a letter to the Oldham Evening Chronicle in which he said: "We will escalate our activities until greedy human beings learn to respect all life."
In October 1991, police saw him plant eight incendiary bombs at a battery hen farm near Canterbury. The bombs failed to explode.
He continued his campaign while on remand at Walton Prison in Liverpool. Prison officers intercepted documents and pamphlets containing details on making incendiary devices and urging fellow campaigners to continue to fight the cause. One pamphlet said: "We are capable of dealing with anyone. No one has died yet but that time will come. For now we have to make their disgusting lives hell so they won't want to live."
He escaped from the police on April 30 last year, after wrestling free from an officer in a police station in Manchester and leaping over a 12ft wall. He was captured while working at an animal sanctuary in Kent owned by the former model Celia Hammond. She had no idea that he had ALF connections.
Police raided the farm and found incendiary materials, including weedkiller, fireworks and sucrose in Mann's bedroom. They also found an envelope under the carpet containing a list of potential bomb targets.
The judge said that, while many people had sympathy for Mann's cause, "some would say that you have damaged the cause which you sought to further.
"You were a dedicated, ruthless and full-time activist, whose goal was economic damage on businesses."
Mann grew up with a passion for animals which became an obsession. In his early teens he successfully campaigned against the filling of a local pond used by moorhens. At 16 he borrowed his mother's wallpaper pasting table and pitched it on the streets of Manchester to raise funds for animal welfare. Detectives moved him on, after which he developed a hatred for the police.
He joined the ALF and soon became a key member. Between working voluntarily for animal welfare organisations, he travelled the country distributing pamphlets and crusading for his cause.
James Wood, QC, for the defence, disputed the prosecution's claim that Mann was an ALF ringleader. However, Detective Superintendent Ivan Montgomery, of Greater Manchester Police, said outside the court: "We still say he was a leader of the ALF not in the sense that he was elected, but in the sense that he was extremely active, dedicated and ruthless."
