They firebombed our cars, threatened to murder me and branded me a

THE animal-rights terrorists sped through the night clutching their list of targets. "Cowards, bullies, perverts, animal killers - go get 'em!"

was the message on the list. At just after midnight, they parked their cars, pulled on their balaclavas, and split into three groups, one of which crept into the suburban culdesac that is home to Alice Smith.

Inside her four-bedroom cottage, Alice, a scientist working for Huntingdon Life Sciences, and her husband, John, were fast asleep. The first time that Alice knew she was under attack was when she was woken by a powerful "whoosh".

Rushing to the window, she was shocked to see that her car was engulfed in flames. John rushed to her side, only to exclaim angrily: "My car's on fire, too!"

Alice and John, both 61 and grandparents, dashed downstairs in their dressing gowns, but within minutes, the flames, rising 20ft into the air, were licking the side of their house. Alice began to cry hysterically as she waited helplessly for the firemen to arrive. But the village had only one fire engine, and its crew was already responding to two other arson attacks on vehicles owned by colleagues of Alice who lived within a few hundred yards of her.

It was then that John decided drastic action was required to save their house.

He tried to get into his burning car and release the brake so that it would roll down the driveway, but the neighbours, now awake, yelled at him to stand clear.

Then suddenly, of its own accord, the car began to move (the brake cable must have melted) and, coming to rest in the middle of the street, spectacularly exploded.

This arson attack is just one incident in a savage four-year reign of terror that Alice and her husband have had to endure at the hands of animal-rights militants. She has had to cope with abusive visits to her home by more than a dozen chanting extremists, bomb hoaxes, leaflets to neighbours branding her an "animal murderer", anonymous calls to social services denouncing her as a "paedophile", and shed- loads of death threats which say things like: "You're gonna die!!! You heartless bitch! We'll get you!!!"

This gutsy woman has decided to defy those who mindlessly attack her, "the idiot bastards" as she calls them, by staying in her job, but the costs to her health have been immense.

At times, she has been reduced to a quivering wreck, too afraid to leave her house and unable to sleep. Compounding her mental anguish is an acute sense of injustice - for none of her faceless tormentors has ever been caught or prosecuted.

Last week, in a belated attempt to protect people like Alice, the Government set out new measures aimed at curbing the extremists. With animal-rights leaders announcing that killing scientists is justified because it could save millions of non-human lives, a raft of new police powers is to be introduced, including the power to arrest people who demonstrate outside a house "in such a way that causes harassment, alarm or distress to residents".

Greg Avery, 36, the vituperative spokesman for Shac, the group attempting to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) - and responsible for publishing the list of targets that include Alice - has promised the new measures will not deter them.

What is it like to become a victim of ruthless animal-rights militia?

Very few are brave enough to speak out. Last week, Ian Gibson, chairman of the Commons select committee on science and technology, refused to appear on BBC2's Newsnight because he feared reprisals from activists. Alice, too, fears reprisals - and for that reason we have changed her name - but unlike many others, she feels that her story needs to be told.

Alice joined Huntingdon Life Sciences as a data clerk more than 20 years ago, when she was a young mother in her thirties. Alice knew, she says, speaking exclusively from her home in Cambridgeshire, that HLS did animal testing, helping pharmaceutical companies develop drugs, but she had reason to believe such work was "important and necessary".

"When I was eight, I came home from school to be told my mother was dead, from an asthma attack," she says, speaking so softly that I have to lean forward to hear. "I will never forget the devastation I felt. To lose one parent at that age is shocking enough, but the following year my father died of lung cancer and my brother and I moved in with our grandparents.

"I'm not saying that's the sole reason I became a scientist, but I knew that my mother could have lived if she'd had access to the kind of drugs asthmatics have today, the kind of drugs we first have to test on animals and which have the power to save lives."

Alice was determined to become a scientist, working at HLS by day and studying at the Open University by night, where she took her bachelor of science degree and qualified with honours after six years. Today, she is one of approximately 800 scientists employed by Huntingdon and presently runs drug studies that involve injecting rats, beagle dogs and monkeys.

"I currently manage six studies that involve heading up toxicology research teams to test the side-effects and efficacy of drugs on 120 rats, 42 dogs, and three monkeys. Studies last from seven days to two years, and at the end, we kill the animals by gassing them, or by lethal injection, in order to dissect the impact on them microscopically.

"I do not believe that what we do is cruel; rather, I believe it is necessary.

One of my studies involves early-stage testing for an anti- Parkinson's drug.

Who knows? It could be the one."

THE merits of vivisection might be bitterly contested today, but when Alice qualified, activists were not targeting HLS. They only ar r ived after a 1997 Channel 4 documentary, It's a Dog's Life, in which a journalist worked undercover at HLS.

"Some things the journalist discovered - such as staff hitting dogs - were truly shocking," recalls Alice. "I didn't work in the division implicated, and I honestly had no idea that sort of thing went on. The technicians involved were arrested, but that was just the beginning, because soon after, Shac was formed and from that day on, we had to run the gauntlet of protesters outside the company gates who shouted abuse and pummelled our cars with their fists every time we went to work."

But things took a more sinister twist after Alice's name appeared as a "target" on a Shac internet newsletter which would have been read by probably every animal-rights activist in Britain.

Despite the fact that she was not one of the high-ranking scientists, and earned just Pounds 22,500 a year, Alice's name and address was one of 12 listed, seemingly at random from an old list of company shareholders, and she found herself subjected to a sustained reign of terror from unidentified extremists.

The named list of HLS targets - seen by the Evening Standard - was subsequently expanded to 37, and includes staff at all levels, from directors to administration staff. Shac's Greg Avery said recently that his organisation no longer condones publication of the list.

Alice did not have long to wait for the harassment to begin. By early 2000, dozens of threatening letters - usually handwritten and peppered with exclamation marks - began arriving daily in her mailbox. They included blatant death threats that she passed to the police. "You are a priority Animal Liberation Front target. The animal-rights militia does not tolerate filthy animalabusing scum like you! We'll kill you, you sick pervert!" warned one. But the police seemed powerless to help.

Alice was also receiving unsolicited mail-order items through the post.

"Shoes, jumpers, bedding - every day something new arrived I hadn't ordered. I had to go through the annoying business of sending it back and got a bad credit-rating."

Yet all this was mild compared to the sickening night she looked out and saw her car ablaze. "After the fire, I was a wreck," she says. "For the first time, I realised how crazy some of these animal- liberation people were, that many really were criminals willing to physically harm, perhaps even kill me.

"For six months, I was so traumatised, I couldn't leave the house. I couldn't eat and I stopped sleeping - my daughter moved back home to look after me. I was angry, I was frightened, I would burst into tears for no reason."

The company gave Alice sick leave and arranged for her to see a psychotherapist. She was prescribed antidepressants. Her children - both university graduates - begged her to leave HLS. "No job is worth this," they argued. She had long discussions with her husband, a civil servant in the MoD, who was furious that the extremists could get away with making their lives a misery, but he was willing to support her in the decision she made.

Six months later, Alice replaced her car and bravely went back to work. She was still extremely jittery. And when a few weeks later, a dozen activists arrived at her home one Sunday lunchtime, she found herself standing, stomach churning with fear, just a few feet from her leering, slogan-yelling tormentors.

"They arrived with their megaphones, whistles and rape alarms, shouting that I was an 'animal murderer'," Alice recalls. "There was no reasoning with people like that. They would stay for five or 10 minutes, always making sure to leave before the police arrived."

Two more such "visits" followed before the company managed to secure an injunction against the protesters.

But the activists found to new ways to terrorise her. Neighbours were leafleted to say that Alice was an " animal murderer" and social services were told that she was a "child abuser and paedophile".

All the while, the death threats and unordered mail-order continued to pile up, including a letter - with coloured wires sticking out - that had to be defused by the police bomb-disposal unit. It turned out to be a hoax.

Alice started to suffer headaches. She was constantly jumpy and irritable.

Many times she wondered if it was worth it. But even as the company's bankers and insurers were pulling out for fear of further reprisals, even as suppliers deserted the company in droves and some other targeted employees understandably sought work elsewhere, Alice decided to stick it out.

Why? "I am stubborn. I am not prepared to give in to those nasty pieces of work," she says passionately.

IT is clear, though, from talking to Alice and witnessing her nervous disposition that the harassment has taken its toll. "I never used to be such an anxious person," she says, with a flicker of a smile. "I can't go anywhere without looking over my shoulder, and every day I dread coming home and opening my post.

"But I won't leave my job until I'm ready because at the end of the day, I'm just an ordinary scientist doing a legitimate job. This kind of thing shouldn't be allowed to happen. I'm not the one who's broken the law. The new Government measures are a start but they don't go nearly far enough. It's high time that the Government stopped these criminals and gave us the protection we need."

(c)2004. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.