Bob Platt reports on security guard Dean Smith's dramatic change of allegiance

Dean Smith has given up his job guarding the route of the controversial Birmingham Northern Relief Road (BNRR).

Security guards are paid £6 an hour

Mr Smith, who joined protesters after a 12-hour night shift, said on Monday: "I was on the wrong side of the fence."

The road, which is designed to ease congestion on the M6 through Birmingham, will cut a swathe through the Warwickshire and Staffordshire countryside.

Digging in for a long fight

The BBC's David Gregory examines the tunnel network built by protesters

Scores of "eco-warriors", many of them veterans of similar protests against the Newbury bypass and the second runway at Manchester airport, have dug in positions at Weeford, Staffordshire.

They have built a network of tunnels in readiness for a protest in the depths of winter.

Security guard-turned-environmentalist Dean Smith: "Someone's got to make a stand"

Mr Smith has been working overnight shifts for six days and he told GMTV: "I stood there and I thought about everything that was going on and I came to the conclusion I was doing the wrong thing - I was on the wrong side of the fence.

"So I've come to this side, make a stance and get some satisfaction from it."

Some protesters have nicknames like Muppet

He accused the government of "taking liberties" with the environment and said he would be standing his ground with the campaigners against his former colleagues.

Sympathy for protesters

A spokeswoman for the Highways Agency said: "He has been working as a security guard for the last five years.

"At this stage it appears that he has gone over to the protesters."

Fraser Halliday, a spokesman for Mr Smith's former employers Project Security Limited, said: "Dean obviously felt he had some sympathy with the protesters and decided to resign and join them.

"We fully screen all security officers to industry standards but we cannot screen anybody for their sympathies for people like the protesters."

'He will get paid'

Mr Halliday promised Mr Smith would be paid for the shifts he had worked.

The road is designed to bypass central Birmingham

Last month the Alliance Against the BNRR failed in a High Court bid to overturn a decision by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to allow the £700m project to go ahead.

They said the 27-mile road, being built by Midland Expressway Ltd, would cut through Green Belt land, cross nature sites, destroy homes and threaten local jobs.

Objectors said Labour had reneged on a promise made before the General Election that it would not build the road because of noise and air pollution problems.