Keith Mann is a British

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...

campaigner and direct action activist who acted as a spokesman for the

Animal Liberation Front The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that engages in and promotes non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in th ...

(ALF), and was alleged by police in 2005 to be a ringleader for the ALF. He was imprisoned twice, and is the author of ''From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement'' (2007).

Background

Mann was raised in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

, Greater Manchester, by his father, who worked as a caretaker, and his mother whom he describes as having done "everything else". His lasting memory of his first job, on a dairy farm, is the cows crying out all day searching for the calves that had been removed from them. He first came into contact with animal rights activists in 1982, when local

hunt saboteur Hunt sabotage is the direct action that animal rights activists and animal liberation activists undertake to interfere with hunting activity. Anti-hunting campaigners are divided into hunt saboteurs and anti-hunt monitors to monitor for cruelt ...

s were handing out leaflets in the street. His first removal of an animal from captivity was when he took a rabbit from a hutch that he used to walk past every day, after having asked the owner for weeks to do something about the rabbit's situation. He writes that this incident changed his view of theft forever, and that he thereafter viewed himself as a "proud ALF activist." His next removal was of a tub of goldfish from a fairground, resulting in him having 53 goldfish in his bath for weeks until he found good ponds for them.

Direct action

Mann espoused direct action and was considered by police to be the ringleader of the

. He was imprisoned twice for illegal acts related to his activism. Mann was arrested in 1991 after carrying out a series of fire attacks on slaughterhouse lorries in

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham ...

. He escaped custody and went on the run for 10 months, working at an animal sanctuary run by the Celia Hammond Animal Trust under an assumed name. In 1994, Mann was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, eventually serving seven years, for 21 offences including arson, possessing explosives and escaping from custody. On 13 December 2003 Mann and Melvyn Glintenkamp entered Wickham Laboratories and removed 695 mice being used to test botulinum toxin. He was arrested at his home and the mice were returned to the laboratory. He argued that the tests were illegal because the product was being tested for cosmetic purposes, which is banned in Britain. A court rejected Mann's defence, ruling that the tests were in compliance with UK regulations, because Botox is also used for therapeutic purposes to prevent muscle spasm. In April 2005 he was found guilty of burglary and given 230 hours community service. On leaving the court, he threatened a director of the company, telling him: "Your trouble has only just started, you will need to look under your bed", which led to a charge of contempt of court and six months in custody, which he served in Winchester Prison. In 2007 Mann was involved in ''Gateway to Hell'', a campaign aimed at airports, ports and freight firms importing animals for experimentation. The

National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit The National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) was a British police organisation funded by, and reporting to, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) that coordinated police action against groups in the United Kingdom it des ...

believed the group was linked to

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 ...

(SHAC), an international campaign to close down

Huntingdon Life Sciences Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest ...

, a contract animal-testing facility. The homes of five air transport executives were attacked within days of the Gateway campaign beginning. Mann said, "Once we have stopped the airports, which we will do before too long, it is going to be difficult for them to find other ways of bringing animals in."Fielding, Nick and Walsh, Gareth
"Vegan bodybuilder funds animal extremists"
, ''The Sunday Times'', 15 March 2007.

The Animal Protection Party

In January 2008, SPEAK Political — since renamed The Animal Protection Party — announced that Mann would stand as an electoral candidate.Ellery, Ben
Animal rights election candidate served time for arson
, ''The Oxford Times'', 24 April 2010. Mann stood in

Oxford West and Abingdon Oxford West and Abingdon is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Layla Moran, a Liberal Democrat. History Creation The seat was created in 1983 as part of the reconfiguration of those in the co ...

against Liberal Democrat MP

Evan Harris Evan Leslie Harris (born 21 October 1965) is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford West and Abingdon from 1997 to 2010, losing his seat in the 2010 general election by 176 votes to Conservative ...

in the 2010 general election. The area was the focus of protests due to the establishment of

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

's Biomedical Sciences Building. Mann received 143 votes (0.3 percent) and Harris lost the seat to Nicola Blackwood of the Conservative Party.

Bibliography

* ''From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement'' (2007), * ''I Am Keith Mann: I Cured Cancer at home'' (2018),

References

External links