Animal rights activists who wrongly targeted the owner of a dog kennel business threatened to bomb him and blow his legs off, a jury was told last Thursday.

Supporters of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) group told Brett Cassidy, owner of Little Creek Quarantine Kennels, they would put a bomb under his car and blow him up while he was in it if he failed to sever all ties with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Winchester Crown Court heard.

The prosecution claims the sole aim of SHAC was to make HLS cease business by target-ing secondary and tertiary companies and blackmail them to stop trading with the animal-testing laboratory.

Heather Nicholson, formerly of Pond Croft in Yateley, Gerrah Selby, formerly of Aldershot Road, Church Crookham, Daniel Wadham, formerly of Pond Croft, Yateley, Gavin Medd-Hall, from Croydon, and Trevor Holmes, from Crawley, West Sussex, deny conspiring between November 15 2001 and May 2 2007, to blackmail those companies they believed to be associates of HLS.

The jury was told how the threat was the culmination of an eight-month campaign during which members of SHAC bombarded staff at the kennels with menacing emails and letters.

They court heard how twice-weekly protests involving up to five SHAC supporters were held every Tuesday and Saturday outside the Cheshire kennels, which provides accommodation for dogs and cats and manufactures dog boxes for transportation of animals abroad.

The protests  grew increasingly louder and more chaotic as time progressed.

Reports of the protests were then posted on a website, biteback.com, said the prosecutor.

The court heard how the father-of-two first learned from a friend how his small family business had been included on SHAC’s list of future protest dates on the group’s website www.shac.net in May 2006.

On May 18, Mr Cassidy received a call from a woman posing as an employee from a fictional company who asked him for a telephone number for Eric Morgan, the managing director of IMPEX - a Cambridgeshire based com-pany that transports animals globally to animal testing labs and other destinations.

She also asked his association with Charles River Laboratories, another animal testing lab. Both companies trade with HLS.

Mr Cassidy told the woman - who was calling from a Parisian number - he had no association with Charles River and although he knew Mr Morgan, he did not have an updated contact number for him.

The court heard how four days following the call SHAC sent an e-mail to Mr Cassidy’s business identifying it as a supplier of animals to HLS for vivisection.

The group told Mr Cassidy they would consider withdrawing his firm’s name from the SHAC website if he “called to explain his circumstances”.

Giving evidence in court, Mr Cassidy said: “I never ever had contact with SHAC because I was advised by the police not to get involved.

“I have never, had any association with HLS and never will in the future.”

The court heard how the first demonstration held outside the kennels took place on June 10 2006. Mr Cassidy said: “They started off quite quiet but with each time they got worse and worse.

“By the end they were absolutely chaotic - unbelievable.”

The court heard how customers of the kennels would get agitated with continuous drumming, shout-ing and screaming by SHAC protesters.

He said the commotion also frightened his two sons, aged 12 and 14 at the time.

The jury heard how Mr Cassidy frequently had to show customers around the kennels to assure them they were not supplying animals to testing labs for vivisection, which would often result in customers arguing with protestors when they came to collect or drop off their pets.

Mr Cassidy said SHAC’s harassment peaked on April 25 2006 when he received a call on his mobile phone at 3am.

He said a woman SHAC protestor told him she “promised” she was going to “firebomb” his car.

He testified that he told her it would make no difference to which she replied: “It will when it blows your legs off.”

The trial continues.