The removal of the remains of Gladys Hammond, the mother-in-law of one of the owners of the controversial breeders of guinea-pigs for vivisection at Darley Oak, Newchurch, Staffordshire, is one of the most noted crimes of protest in the last few years. Last night (Tuesday), it was featured on Crimewatch; today five people have been arrested in conjunction with it by Staffordshire police, who claimed to be acting on tip-offs.

The reality is that they were ready and waiting to arrest known activists and to further taint the campaign against the Hall family breeding the guineapigs. What the press and police are not saying is that the Hall family have taken out an injunction and there is due to be a ruling on it tomorrow. What a fine bit of coincident timing that is. Especially when some of those arrested today are supposed to be in court tomorrow...

Now compare it to the last time they arrested people for this crime; the people picked up were already named on the injunction, and by shere coincidence happened to be in court for none other than the Newchurch injunction.

An injunction mostly written by the police

Surely even the heavy-handed tactics of Inspector David Bird and PC Mark Rushton of Staffordshire Police are not that clumsy, that they would be silly enough to think they could influence the proceedings of the High Court. Yet, there are some remarkable coincidences floating around that need explanation....