Oxford University has won a ruling that the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) press officer, Robin Webb, should be bound by an injunction made by Oxford Crown Court banning certain protests. The injunction provides Oxford University and its students, staff, contractors and suppliers with much needed legal protection from animal rights intimidation, harassment and abuse.

The judge ruled that Mr Webb is a propagandist and not a journalist and that he made a ‘conscious contribution to the fear sought to be exercised by the ALF and associated groupings upon the University of Oxford’. The Guardian website reported that the judge ruled that the ALF press office is a vital part of the ALF’s strategy and that one of the key weapons of this movement is fear.

The court was shown video evidence from a Dispatches documentary from 1998 in which Webb explained how to make incendiary devices. It was high time that the ALF’s tactical claim, that it does not exist as a group and therefore cannot be bound by the injunction, was dismissed. The judge said that the ALF was a ‘coherent organisation which could therefore be represented in legal action’.

This ruling is very encouraging and should prevent similar extremist organisations from using such legal tricks in trying to create a climate of fear and intimidation. Organisations like the ALF are not outside the law and their supporters are responsible for their actions to the courts.