The second plea hearing has concluded for 18 supporters of Animal Rising, with all pleading not guilty to burglary charges, after the first plea hearing on 25/07/24 [1].
The defendants appeared at Cambridge Magistrates Court this week for charges relating to the December 2022 rescue of 20 beagle puppies from MBR Acres, a beagle breeding facility in Cambridgeshire that breeds up to 2,000 puppies a year for the animal testing industry. 18 of the puppies now live in safe forever homes, while two were captured by the police and returned to the facility [2].
The prosecution is considering an additional charge of conspiracy to commit burglary, with the defendants scheduled to appear in court on October 18th for their plea hearing.
Supporters hope to “put animal testing on trial” when the trial begins on December 1st, 2025.
After appearing at Cambridgeshire Crown Court this week, 18 Animal Rising supporters that freed over a dozen beagles in December of 2022 are set to appear in court for a plea hearing in October. The defendants were charged in June, nearly two years after their bold rescue. This is the second beagle rescue from Animal Rising, after five puppies were rescued from the site in June of 2022, with the rescuers ultimately having their charges dropped. In both cases, rescuers voluntarily handed themselves into the police.
Orla Coghlan, Animal Rising spokesperson, said:
“After witnessing the horrors and suffering that these puppies face in testing, we knew that freeing them and highlighting the cruelty and redundancy of animal testing had to come next. These loving and gentle animals deserve lives of freedom and play, not experimentation and death.
Dogs are beloved friends and companions to many of us, and the public would be horrified to learn what happens to these puppies in testing. MBR Acres and the industry try to avoid publicity and scrutiny, and by going in front of a jury, we intend to put the entire indefensible and horrific industry on trial.”
The defendants cite the cruelty that the beagles endure as justification for their rescue, with instances of puppies being bled to death to harvest their blood and organs [3] and being force-fed poisons and drugs that leave them “hypersalivating, trembling, vomiting and moaning on the floor” [4] before ultimately dying or being put down.
Alternatives to animal testing like lab-grown stem cells and advanced computer modeling are more effective and ethical, [5] given that around 90% of the experimental drugs tested on animals go on to fail in human trials, [6] and “animal studies fail to predict real human outcomes in 50 to 99.7 percent of cases” [7].
Animal Rising is a social movement to create a new relationship with all beings and give us a chance for a safe ecological future. The group primarily calls for the transition to a secure and sustainable plant-based food system, alongside a mass rewilding programme.
ENDS
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Notes To The Editor:
[3] Bleeding License: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZJeVUWMnE3msPSz1bE-fo_pWOkdJW8jc/view?usp=sharing
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