About 80 protesters took to the streets to voice their views about an animal-testing lab.
There were almost as many police as demonstrators at the annual march against Wickham Laboratories, Winchester Road, Wickham, on Saturday.
Among the protesters was 'the Granarchist', Helen Nelson, who is in her 80s and has been fighting animal tes
ting at the lab for the past 20 years.
She said: 'We have been trying for a long time to stop these pointless experiments. It's an extremely cruel system and quite pointless, because a lot of things that are poisonous to humans are harmless to animals.
'Penicillin kills guinea pigs, so if it had been tested on them we would have been without that really important antibiotic.'
Protesters arrived in Wickham on Saturday afternoon from all over the country. They marched through the village, handed out leaflets, then speeches were given in the village square, followed by a march to the laboratories. A wreath was laid and a two-minute silence was held for the animals in the laboratory.
They held a short sit-down protest outside the labs, blocking the road, but moved when asked to by police.
Nobody from Wickham Laboratories was available to comment.
The full article contains 209 words and appears in NS-City newspaper.
