Animal rights activist jailed

Animal rights activist jailed

Old Surrey, Burstow West Kent Hunt members were also targeted

An animal rights activist has been jailed for harassing a company director and his family wrongly believing they had links with a firm which carries out experiments on animals.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how Sonia Hayward, 35, drove by Timothy Allington's Kent home while an accomplice threw rocks through the windows.

Mr Allington, the former managing director of pharmaceuticals firm Ligand, thought he was in such danger he hired security guards and had a panic button in his home.

The court heard he had been wrongly targeted by activists who thought he was linked to Cambridgeshire-based Huntington Life Sciences.

If a person cannot feel safe in his or her own home, where can they feel safe?

Judge David Mitchell

Hayward, of Woodside Road, Tonbridge, was also sentenced for her part in a campaign during the summer of 2001 to harass female members of a fox hunt using fake prostitute calling cards.

Cards with telephone numbers of seven members of the Old Surrey, Burstow and West Kent Hunt were put in call boxes across the South East.

Hayward, who pleaded guilty to both offences, was sentenced to two months in jail for conspiracy to harass using the cards and 15 months for conspiracy to damage property, to run concurrently.

Judge David Mitchell said: "A person is entitled to feel safe in his own home.

"If a person cannot feel safe in his or her own home, where can they feel safe?

"Mr Allington suffered such nervous worry for himself and his family that he was in constant fear of attack.

"You are just as guilty as the person who got out and threw the rocks."