The information taken from an alleged animal rights activist’s computer detailing attacks on companies linked to an animal research laboratory was “just the tip of the iceberg”, a jury has heard.

The encrypted emails and word documents described demonstra-tions and protests against secondary and tertiary companies linked with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Winchester Crown Court was told.

The data was sent between Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) activist Gavin Medd-Hall and other group members, the prosecution claimed.

Information was also sent to animal rights activists in Europe and America, the court heard.

Medd-Hall appears with four other alleged SHAC members charged with conspiracy to blackmail.

Medd-Hall, along with Heather Nicholson, of Pond Croft in Yateley, Gerrah Selby, formerly of Aldershot Road, Church Crookham, Daniel Wadham, formerly of Pond Croft, Yateley, 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.

Earlier in the trial, the court was told that SHAC’s sole aim was to shut down HLS.

It targeted secondary and tertiary companies which had links with HLS and blackmailed them into severing all ties with HLS, the prosecution claimed.

SHAC supporters would carry out “direct action” on the firms, usually under the badge of the Animal Liberation Front or the Animal Rights Militia, until they released a “capitulation statement” saying they would stop working with HLS, the jury was told.

Prosecutor Michael Bowes QC said the group “used unwarranted demands and menaces” to get the companies to sever ties with HLS.

Last Thursday the jury was shown emails and documents taken from Medd-Hall’s computer by Kent Police after a two-year investigation into animal rights activism.

Both SHAC and Medd-Hall used Pretty Good Privacy software on their computers to disguise conversations and information, the court heard.

Det Sgt John Madigan said the computer contained thousands of documents describing protests and “direct action” taken on companies believed to be linked to HLS.

He added: “We produced around 5,000 pages of documents. However that is the tip of the iceberg. In this situation a single document could have had more than 100 or 200 pages.”

One document, read to the court by Mr Bowes, said pharmaceutical company Novartis would be targeted. “We suggest Novartis is the number one global target,” it said. “They have had dealings with HLS for some time.”

The jury was told that some of the data included employees’ details, of companies SHAC believed to be working with HLS.

Staff names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers were stored on a spreadsheet on Medd-Hall’s computer, the court heard.

Medd-Hall was involved in organ-ising SHAC demonstrations, the court heard.

Mr Bowes showed the court emails from SHAC, believed to have come from the group’s headquarters in Eversley, to Medd-Hall asking him to book flights. Mr Bowes alleged the flights were for Wadham and Nicholson to carry out demonstrations in Sweden in 2005.

Wadham, who allegedly joined SHAC in 2005 while he was living with Nicholson in Yateley, had correspondence with Medd-Hall via email, the court heard. On one occasion Wadham, 21, asked Medd-Hall to find details of companies in Iceland which were linked with HLS.

The trial continues.