In April, a British court rejected Huntingdon Life Sciences’ request for access to Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’s address list of 10,000 supporters, but was granted HLS access to SHAC’s financial records and a list and addresses of all supporters who are activists with criminal records.
The ruling comes as part of the discovery process in HLS’s lawsuit against SHAC which looks to be on track to start sometime later this year.
HLS lawyers argued they needed access to the list to prove that SHAC includes among its supporters animal rights activists with criminal records, but a judge denied that request. Of course its a bit odd, but typically hypocritical, for a group like SHAC that regularly publishes the addresses of people only tangentially related to HLS to clam up over its own members.
According to the Telegraph, at one point SHAC’s lawyers actually tried to maintain that SHAC is not actually a group at all and thus not subject to discovery, but in the end conceded that it was an unincorporated association.
According to SHAC’s lawyer, Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, the organization receives about 150,000 pounds a year in donations.
Source:
Huntingdon refused access to information on activists. Rosie Murray-West, Telegraph (UK), April 21, 2005.