A victory against animal rights thugs...

Nice ending to a horrible story....from the UK..

He says he could never have lived with himself if he had bowed to violence and intimidation from animal rights activists.

Instead, Mr Cass risked his life by standing up and being counted when countless of other firms publicly declared they would have nothing to do with HLS even though the company was, as the law insists, simply testing new drugs on animals before they could be declared safe for human use.

While animal rights activists protested in their SHAC – Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty – T-shirts, Mr Cass started wearing a design of his own.

It said SHAC on the front but the acronym was spelt out on the back as: "Spongers Hypocrites Anarchists Cowards".

Tomorrow Mr Cass and a small group of defiant businessmen will see most of the leaders of SHAC sentenced to lengthy jail terms for their part in a ten-year campaign aimed at shutting down the company, which employs 1,700 people worldwide.

It is a campaign which nearly saw one businessman burned to death and which brought fear to hundreds of others of employees.

Mr Cass said that he never considered walking away from HLS for a safer job. "The work we are doing is vital to continue developing new and better medicines.

We have always had the determination that we must continue for the sake of patients, all people involved in medical research and our staff."

He said the police had made significant inroads into the illegal activities of Shac by jailing so many of its activists.

He said: "The aim is to ensure those people who break the law are properly dealt with by the judicial process. We have always supported the right of people to protest within the law for their beliefs, but what must not be allowed is for the protest to tip over into criminal activity which threatens individuals and businesses."

In 2001, Mr Cass was set upon and beaten so badly by three men that he needed hospital treatment.

"I arrived home in the dark, got out of my car, turned around and there were three individuals with what looked like pickaxe handles already raised above their heads," he said.

"I protected myself as best I could but they hit me on the back of the head. They kept raining blows down on me – on my head, back and forearm." Mr Cass said his attackers eventually fled when his partner and neighbour came out of their respective homes.

In another incident a businessman linked to HLS was attacked when he heard intruders outside his home and discovered them setting fire to his barn.

Assailants knocked him to the ground and left him unconscious besides the burning barn, but he regained consciousness before the flames engulfed him.