Animal rights extremists target dead man's family
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Animal rights extremists have targeted the widow of a former pharmaceuticals agent who has been dead for more than a year.
Kathryn Grant, 51, and her teenage son were at home when the family car was torched by fanatics who later boasted on a website "your decisions will come back to haunt you forever even when you have gone".
Mrs Grant said: "I cannot believe they have done this knowing Alex was no longer managing director."
Alexander Grant, 49, the former managing director of the UK division of Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate, died of an unknown heart condition shortly after he and his wife celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary in New York in March last year.
Roche has long been a target of animal rights activists for its links to Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a research laboratory that has been one of the most high-profile subjects of vilification by campaigners.
Sussex Police confirmed yesterday that they were hunting the arsonists after the fire brigade was called to put out the blazing car near Mrs Grant's home on 13 October. The BMW X5 went up in flames after a fire was started beneath it.
A recent addition to the Bite Back website - used by the Animal Rights Militia, Animal Liberation Front and other extremists - said: "This year we have been keeping many senior personnel from HLS's customers and suppliers under intense surveillance. One such person was Alexander Grant, East Sussex. Grant was a senior director of Roche who are a major customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences. We were planning an attack on Grant a few months ago but then realised that he had just died of a heart attack.
"In October we carried out the operation at Grant's address planting two incendiary devices under an expensive four-wheel drive, totally destroying it. People who sign contracts with or deal with Huntingdon need to realise that your decisions will come back to haunt you forever even when you have gone."
Mrs Grant said she initially thought a firework had hit her car. "As I racked my brains for who might have done it I remembered a few years ago there was a bit of hassle at Roche with animal rights demonstrators," she said, adding: "They were obviously not that bothered who was in the house and what could have happened."
Mr Grant never worked in an animal laboratory but Roche is a key target for campaigners.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty claims that the company is a big customer of HLS and studies for Roche have included experiments on monkeys, mice and rats.
Last week leading members of the pharmaceutical industry called for animal rights extremists to face restrictions on their movements, including bans on travel abroad.
The industry is stepping up its lobbying of Government despite additional laws introduced earlier this year. Drug makers in the UK said the number of reported acts of vandalism or intimidation by anti-vivisectionists in the first six months of the year fell to 35 from 56 in the same period of 2004, but said they were increasingly severe.
The Bite Back website lists hundreds of claimed attacks across the world.