A profile of an animal rights extremist...

This guy is dangerous...

The mastermind behind an animal rights campaign inciting violent attacks against Oxford University academics is revealed today as a 33-year-old former arts promoter based in Florida.

From his detached home in West Palm Beach, Nicolas Atwood runs a website which last month urged violence on all staff and students at Oxford over plans for an animal research laboratory.

Last week the site circulated a list of 40 named academics and their home addresses, saying that they were “legitimate targets”.

Describing some as “scum”, it told animal rights activists they had “everything to gain by hitting these targets hard”.

Atwood’s website is used as the main forum for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). It lists and glorifies successful attacks including arson, burglary and criminal damage on the workplaces and homes of scientists and associated workers.

Atwood, a management postgraduate with a criminal record for animal rights activity, has been behind the Bite Back group and allied website for at least three years.

British police say they are powerless to act because he is an American citizen living in the US and his website is administered in Malaysia.