Mr Tatchell intends to challenge the way the Act gives the church privileged protection against protest

Mr Tatchell intends to challenge the way the Act gives the church “privileged protection against protest”.More than 700 lawyers, professors, clergy and human rights activists have signed a petition by the National Secular Society deploring the prosecution of Mr Tatchell and calling for the Act to be repealed on the basis that “it gives the church unique and sweeping powers to suppress dissent”.Among the signatories are Sir Ludovic Kennedy, Bishop Derek Rawcliffe, Alan Bennett, Vanessa Redgrave and Paul Foot. The National Secular Society wrote to Dr Carey in October, urging him to call for the charge to be dropped or at least ask the court not to jail Mr Tatchell However, Dr Carey refused. The court turned down Mr Tatchell’s request for permission to summon Dr Carey as a witness, but declined to give a reason.Mr Tatchell, who has been involved in more than 1,000protests during 30 years campaigning for lesbian and gay human rights, said last night: “Dr Carey calls for compassion to be shown to a human rights abuser, General Pinochet, but not for a human rights defender like Peter Tatchell.”The veteran Labour left-winger, Tony Benn, will tomorrow give evidence at Mr Tatchell’s trial, at Canterbury Magistrates’ Court. He branded as “obsolete” the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 – which was formerly part of the Brawling Act of 1551.”People don’t realise how very, very deep feudal control is in our society,” said the MP for Chesterfield. “When you think that Major appoints an archbishop who is then protected by a brawling act you realise we haven’t escaped much from the medieval repression of activities and ideas.”Bishop Holloway said in his statement: “Peter Tatchell’s tactics do not attract much sympathy from the general public and I do not always approve of them myself.”But, he added, they have “a certain historic precedent.”History shows us that reform movements always gain their energy from the extreme actions of a few individuals who feel they have been abused by the system against which they are protesting.”.

SLOWLY BUT surely, a militant animal rights activist jailed for arson and dismissed by some as an “urban terrorist” is becoming one of Middle England’s most unlikely martyrs. Barry Horne, 46, sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment, is starving himself to death trying to force the Government to outlaw experiments on animals. This morning, he will have gone 53 days without food.
Yesterday hundreds of animal rights campaigners around the country held protests supporting Horne. At York General Hospital, where he was transferred from Full Sutton prison, he receives up to 40 letters and cards of support a day. Friends have to read them to him as starvation has caused his eyesight to fail.One might suppose Horne’s support comes only from extremists who try to force the issue without thought for those they hurt in the process. But the cards and messages that line his flower-filled room come from a cross-section of British society.Nancy Phipps, whose daughter Jill died four years ago when she was crushed by a lorry exporting live calves to the continent, is one who has visited Horne.”We are just one step away from Barry,” said the scriptwriter Carla Lane, an animal rights activist who sent a message of support.

“You get to the point when you cannot sleep at night because of the images of what you have seen.”You will never find people more committed or dedicated. And yet everybody in the media is so obsessed with what Barry has done rather than why he did it.”For the record, what Horne did was this. Based in a Birmingham bedsit, the father of two launched a series of incendiary attacks on shops throughout the south and west of England. In 1994 he caused damage worth millions of pounds to stores on the Isle of Wight before detectives caught him two years later.At his trial last year the judge described him as an “urban terrorist” while the police said he was “dangerous, ruthless and absolutely committed”. The sentence was the harshest ever given to an animal rights protester, despite the judge’s acknowledgement that Horne had no intention of endangering human life.Held in one of Britain’s highest security prisons, he continued his fight the only way he could: by refusing food.

In his eighth week of hunger- strike, Horne has lost more than 25 per cent of his body fat and lies on an inflatable mattress designed to reduce the pain as his body slowly consumes his internal organs.Even if he resumed eating, doctors who recently visited him said his chances of survival would be less than 70 per cent “Barry is very frightened. He is dreading that this might be the end,’ said a fellow campaigner, Tony Humphries, after visiting Horne yesterday “It is devastating. Those of us who have seen him regularly have seen him deteriorate, but for those who come every few weeks it is particularly hard.”Horne, who has staged hunger strikes before only to call them off, appears determined this time to take his protest all the way.In a letter written in the hospital wing at Full Sutton, he said: “It’s harder this time, but please don’t read into it that my resolution is in any way not 100 per cent In fact, the reverse is true.. there is no longer any room for compromise As such, my resolve to win is higher than at any time. I am determined to see it through and win the victory for the animals in the labs that they deserve.”As Horne’s protest continues, his support seems to grow, with hundreds of animal rights activists from North Devon to Westminster protesting yesterday “People perceive that compassion is universal. Just liberation struggles of the past, such as the fight for the abolition of slavery and emancipation of slavery, have attracted all classes and creeds,” said Robin Webb, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front.At Small Dole, West Sussex, several hundred campaigners demonstrated outside a farm owned by the Shamrock company, which allegedly breeds monkeys for experiments.

A spokesman for the Save the Shamrock Monkeys campaign, said: “Today we protest in solidarity with Barry Horne against the evil vivisection industry. I think when someone is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for an issue you have to take notice of them. You say `This is really serious’.”But it is extremely unlikely that the Government will agree to Horne’s demand to establish a royal commission to look at the issue of vivisection. While Home Office ministers, including the Home Secretary Jack Straw, have been briefed on the situation, the Government is adamant it will not be “blackmailed”. “It is regrettable that Mr Horne has taken this course of action, but it is his decision,” said a spokesman.Should Horne starve himself to death, the reaction from animal rights protesters is likely to be dramatic.