"What Happens Next?" Click here to read where the tale left off from issue no. 10 of Bite Back magazine.

When the UK banned cosmetic testing, they certainly didn't mean ALL cosmetic testing. After all, who in their right minds would want to halt the advancement of Botox? One can never have too many lip implants.

But when the government conveniently overlooked its own law, the ALF jumped into action for some of its own night time justice.

After a night of lifting 700 mice to safety, activists had penetrated one of the most talked about labs in the UK.

How did the do it? After serving 6 months in prison, Keith Mann fills us in.

It’s not unusual to hear people assert that this or that centre of abuse is out of the question for a raid or inspection because of the security or notoriety of the place. Wickham Laboratories, in the centre of the twee Hampshire village of the same name, is just such a place. Or rather it was. Made public in the early 80’s by daylight raiders investigating the use of stolen pets, night-time raiders who escaped with a pack of beagles, and opportunists grabbing documentary evidence, the contract testing lab management have done themselves no favours running a tail docking practice on site, calling for the stray dogs the RSPCA put to sleep every year to be handed over instead for testing products on and violently attacking opponents. Of course they have a tendency to attack protestors and lie also about what they do, but that tends to go with the territory. Added to which, the vile little place was infiltrated in the early 90’s and exposed for all the gross things always uncovered from the like. Of course there would be more scandal to come if only further access could be gained but word had it in the activist community that wouldn’t be likely because it was ‘Wickham’.

Aware of them merrily testing all and sundry on animals in large numbers a trusted colleague and I took some time out to hover around the village as the lights went down and see what we could see. It soon became addictive as we realised the reputation was a great deal more fearsome than the security. One thing I’ve found during these projects is that the more you look the more you see and early potential obstacles can be removed with some lateral thinking, but here, ironically, their use of the LD50 poisoning test was to prove our biggest problem, and in more ways than one their greatest asset.

From early on in our reccies we were having to sneak around avoiding late workers and watch out for them turning up at all hours. On a couple of occasions we managed to clamber crawl and creep across roof tops of buildings on the site to the Secondary Animal Facility near where there would be intermittent activity throughout the night as staff popped in to massacre mice and other small furry rodents. We got so close we could hear them talking and laughing and could see them just below us through the frosted glass on the inside of the building. Had we been the type of people they say we are it would have been the easiest thing in the world to do these people the kind of serious harm they were doing to others far less capable of defending themselves.

Focusing instead on recovering evidence and rescuing some animals, we set about formulating a plan to break in through the roof as soon after the site was vacated as possible and leave before anyone returned. Figuring out a suitable break in proceedings proved the biggest headache of all as it was so random. We could get two hours or maybe six, and in the middle a police patrol that was nothing really to worry about cos as close as they came to the SAF they only tended to drive up, turn round and go.

It was mid December 2003. We’d worked out the best place to park a vehicle for loading, which meant moving a fence to allow us access to a spot blind of neighbouring houses behind the old Wickham veterinary practice. Between that and the perimeter of the labs was a really helpful area of grassland from where we were able to monitor activity and get over the outer fence without being detected.

Due to the noise we were going to have to make to force a hole in the gable end of the roof by first removing a wooden panel and entering the unknown, it was desirable to have some busy weather on the night to dull some of the sound. It was going to have to be last minute at Wickham and all concerned were prepared to act at a moments notice. The biggest flaw in what was a pretty well thought out plan was the fact that I am a marked man and was under surveillance and had been seen in the area on the day before we decided to go for it. That day Tom, Jerry and I had gone there tooled up to break in (headlights, crowbar, screwdrivers, cutters, saw and so on), with three rucksacks full of large rolled up shopping bags for whatever we might find inside, and with backup vehicles to take the animals to a pre-arranged safe house. The weather was good and we were long over our nerves after three hours of squatting in the grass ready for the mindless morons we had under surveillance to follow our whispers willing them to “turn the fucking lights out and go home” so we could get on with a long overdue incursion into their sordid world of poisoning small live things to death.

I often claim when speaking publicly that I don’t hate these people just what they do, but I soon felt nothing but hatred for these stupid shaven headed morons as we watched them thoughtlessly go about their disgusting business long into the night.

The gas chamber is a favourite (spelt with a u, USA) at Wickham in which survivors of the test substance writhe in agony until they are dead, or there’s the option of “cervical dislocation” (break the neck in normal speak) or a lethal injection. Of course there is no option it just depends what the thug with the power to decide decides he wants to do. He really doesn’t care just as long as it doesn’t take him too long and he can note down the details.

We knew it was going to be as much about good luck that we weren’t disturbed as good planning and I for one expected to be a suspect in the following investigation-- living only a county away and having a big mouth. But there was no question we were going to at least attempt to have our say. We had a number of escape routes worked out and never expected any of the bullies on the job to take on anyone in a balaclava in a dark eerie walkway. Experience has taught that these people aren’t so brave when confronted by someone they can’t push around. Small rodents are one thing but masked animal liberators with sharp tools are another.

Anyway, due to the fact the night’s assassins were intent on making it a late one we were persuaded to call it off and head home empty handed again. This to me had always seemed like dead time, again going home with nothing to show for putting in an effort and taking a risk, but this time is in fact invaluable and as important as the successful outings in achieving our long-term aims. Not everything can have immediate impact. We decided to stash the rucksacks and come back in 24 hours. Police documents would later show I had been seen at my partner’s home later that night.

I was out of the house early the following morning and going about my mundane business. We all in our own way filled the next few hours before we had the chance to go for it again.

The following night we met up covertly and made our way to Wickham. Parking away from the lab we plotted up again at our perch and waited. We didn’t have to wait long and whispered in frustration only once between us for them to FO home before they did! In a flash we were ballied up, over the fence and sneaking our way as we had many times before along the deserted walkways to the rear of the complex, up the fire escape and onto the roof. Using a ventilation pipe as a platform I unfurled my box of tricks on the roof and like a surgeon set about teasing a hole in a skull. Oh how wood splinters! At that time of night in a tiny rural neighbourhood splintering wood makes one hell of a racket, as the lookouts would remind me. I was trying to keep it quiet but even pulling out nails was unnecessarily noisy. Half an hour later we were into the roof space. With all the piping and wooden supports running through the attic, and the claustrophobic atmosphere, it was no easy feat to move around, but we managed to find our way around the network of rooms below by lifting the roof tiles and peering in. Seeing no cameras in the attic and hot with the work I dropped my scarf to aid breathing and slithered my way along. Somehow forgetting where I was, I forgot to replace it as I stuck my face into the first room I got to. What was the first thing I looked for, and at? A security camera! They had those small round black glass cameras in each room and I’d looked straight at one, albeit upside down it would so obviously be me! I spent only a split second figuring out how to talk myself out of that one and got on with the job.

There were mice in ten small rooms, cages in another, extermination equipment and documents. We were intending to put the animals into the carry bags and pass them out of the roof, but due to the limited space instead had to pass them out cage by cage. This made hard work of moving dozens of mice cages (really just small plastic boxes) out through the maze of obstructions. As we expected local police drove by an hour in but there was nothing for them to see as their van and its mass of yellow, blue and white bounced in the light off the side of the unit we were busy in. It wasn’t exactly welcoming to have Tom call in that the police were there with us, but as soon as he told us to be aware he told us to get on with it again. With all rooms accessed (in disguise) and cameras disabled as we went we emptied them of over 700 mice and whatever tools, chambers and documents there were. Hung on the outside of the doors were the lab reports we were after, but the security system in the corridor and on doors meant we weren’t able to enter it without triggering the alarm, so some were left out of reach. While moving the animals to their getaway vehicle we agreed I would drive the animals away, while Tom and Jerry went back and rushed through the corridor grabbing all documents and the CCTV tape if it could be found before making good their escape. It was midnight when I left the site. We’d been in there for two hours, and it was time to leave anyway, so we may as well be setting alarm bells off. We had mass of animals to place, hopefully some useful documents too.

But as T&J turned the corner before heading up the fire escape next to the Animal House, they became aware they weren’t alone. Having just opened the rear gate and entered the compound was the oddball who was on killing duty that morning. Everyone scarpered. He phoned the police on his mobile and they were there in nine minutes. Nine minutes too late. It turned out that Oddball had his girlfriend and baby waiting in the car out back of the lab while he popped in to slaughter some tiny, unhappy, caged female mice.

The National Crime Squad and local detectives were called in and the lab was sealed off for forensic examination for three days. Oddball was questioned and released back into society (where he and his colleagues continue to pose a very serious threat to all life forms). The mice were in the various stages of Botox poisoning tests, their tails marked to indicate dose levels administered. Some were due injections later that day, for many others it was already too late. The documents were a real treat while at the same time simply disgusting. It was compelling reading. You know it happens, and that these people are so callous and unreasonable for words, but to see it in their own words in classified documents brings everything home. There was page after page of dates aside numbers aside the species, its sex and its age. Hundreds upon hundreds of individuals, none older than 6 weeks of age, injected in the stomach with Botulinum Toxin. Up to six hundred in one single day, each a number either poisoned or later punished for surviving it with a brutal execution. There were rats, mice, rabbits and guinea pigs in their thousands, tens of thousand every year.

Two days later, early on the Monday morning, I noticed I was under surveillance again and was later arrested cleaning out my car by a dozen detectives who arrived like a cloud of darkness as I hoovered. Handcuffed, I was led away as the garage had their vacuum bag confiscated. The early story I was told was that my car had been seen parked in the area the night before the raid, but it later emerged there was a lot more to it than that. I was released on bail 10 hours later, all my clothes, footwear, electrical equipment and car confiscated. It was 8 months later, following detailed inquiries which revealed sufficient circumstantial evidence, that we were charged.

The night of the raid I’d dropped the mice in their cages at a friends farm in the New Forest some 50 miles away, from where many were later recovered by these hyper-enthusiastic government agents. This was a severe blow but the saddest thing of all was hearing they’d given the mice straight back to Wickham who, it emerged in court, promptly utilised their re-found loss in some other sick poisoning test.

Evidence against me included mobile phone records from a phone I had used once, which was traced to the Wickham area on the night of the raid and showed text messages had been sent between this phone and my co-defendants, neither of which was recovered nor the content. It was, we were told, not usual for a case such as this involving as it did the loss of a few hundred small white mice and some documents from a commercial premises, that phone transmitter records be obtained to pinpoint the location of mobile phones, and when texts were sent. This is usually something reserved for murder investigations. There was also a possible fibre match from the roof space and a possible tyre track mark from my car near the lab. Teams of detectives kept me under surveillance following my release tailing me after bail appointments at the police station and eavesdropping on conversations. This was a big thing for the police and no expense was spared in their investigation.

All this to secure the future of medical research? Probably more to do with the fact we’d exposed as lies government claims to have ended cosmetic testing and the use of the LD50 test. None of the paperwork was recovered despite intense police efforts and its content was later exposed in a national newspaper, one that coincidently used a future article to condemn me as a terrorist thug, a monster and one of the most dangerous men in Britain following my conviction for this raid!

One of the residents of the farm where the mice were recovered was charged with conspiracy to commit burglary, and we went on trial over a year later. I admitted my role, but denied I was guilty on the grounds that the tests we uncovered were illegal and immoral. Not only is the LD50 test crude and irrelevant, and there is a supposed voluntary ban on cosmetic testing, but there is a non-animal, non-violent alternative to the LD50 test for Botox. My co-defendant denied involvement and the evidence agreed with our stories.

In court, papers revealed there were “undesirable” side effects to the product’s injection into animals (monkeys and mice were referred to), which were described as “commercially sensitive” and so edited from the released licence details. The test product in question, Dysport, contains human albumin, a blood product, which according to documents carries the risk of transmitting viral infection, not that anyone really cares because the growth in the use of Botox if far too profitable. One Wickham witness first denied they use the LD50, but was forced to own-up under cross-examination after we revealed the documents I stole, and then admitted it was the poisoning method they preferred. The judge was absolutely incredulous at the idea that I claimed to have acted with honest intent in breaking into Wickham to reveal as a lie government claims of test bans on cosmetics and the use of the LD50. From the offset it was his stated purpose to publicly exonerate Wickham of any involvement in anything illegal, and he did so often. On one occasion he remanded the two of us into custody after cars in the area near the court were leafleted during the lunch recess re government lies on vivisection, but we were exonerated after CCTV footage of the court car park showed only an unknown female assailant assaulting cars with her honest propaganda. The judge also became agitated at observers in the public gallery taking notes on proceedings. He confiscated the notes of two people including one Wickham boss who spent the eight-day trial in the courtroom taking notes and fidgeting uncomfortably in the presence of others not like him.

Ignoring the fact that it became clear there is no official monitoring of the use of Botox once it has killed animals in places like Wickham, and ignoring my legal defence at the end of the trial, the judge summed up the case for the prosecution-- warning the jury of anarchy should I be acquitted, and reminding them that there was nothing wrong with Wickham’s work in the eyes of the government. His summing-up was in the view of all objective observers nothing short of outrageous and as good, if not better, than the prosecution case. The jury was duly persuaded to unanimously convict us both. The judge described the raid, which caused minimal physical damage and generated media coverage leading to calls to address the Botox scandal as “a very serious offence” and worse than the ordinary burglary! He reluctantly consented to bail us pending sentencing and warned that prison was highly likely.

Weeks later we returned for sentencing and I was fully expecting to be sent to prison for two years, but due to the mitigating circumstance of the fact that I am a carer and my imprisonment would adversely affect my partner, and because the judge didn’t want to, as he put, make me a martyr and attract any further publicity, he agreed to a non custodial community punishment. We were free to go!

On leaving court I, as I often had, exchanged words with Chris Bishop, the Wickham director who had been in court for the week-long trial. I lived in the same village as him for months and never even said boo. He mumbled something and I told him his troubles had only just started. He jumped up like someone shoved a hot rod up his arse and squealed, “Mr Mann, you can’t say that to me!” The judge summonsed me back into court and convened a further trial to find out what had been said, consulted other witnesses who agreed with me, and concluding I had been in contempt of court, helped in no small part by Bishop adding that I said “You will have to look under your bed, or words to that effect”. This behaviour is nothing unusual for an animal abuser. Wickham denied they use animals at all, then proven liars denied they were testing Botox on them. All lies. Still, I was then sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of court attracting all the publicity the judge had said he wanted to avoid, and heaps more!

Just three weeks before I was due to be released the Attorney General appealed against my original non custodial sentence for the raid, and got the Appeal Court to turn it into 12 months to start the day of my release, arguing that 18 months was the appropriate sentence for such a serious offence.

I made mistakes and paid the price. My biggest regret is not preventing them taking the mice back, but Wickham and what they do is a talking point and life isn’t so jolly there these days since we pulled them into public view.

I spent 6 months of the 18 in three different prisons including our only prison ship. Not especially happy times but a small price to pay for making a stand against something I’m even unhappier with. I’m currently tagged and confined indoors between the hours of darkness. They’ve kept my car but finally returned my clothing and so on two years later. Meanwhile, the government are so concerned by our little efforts they are seeking laws to make these raids as significant as flying planes into buildings and blowing up passenger trains. Does what we have to say have them worried or not! Keep talking people. Every little thing we do is chipping away, but the bigger the better.

Keith Mann