A GROUP of animal rights protesters descended on Blackpool this week to try to convince a stockbroker company to stop dealing with shares in one of Europe's largest animal testing laboratories.

The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Society have been targeting various corporations across the North West to persuade them to stop dealing in shares of the Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) lab in Cambridge, one of the biggest of its kind in Europe.

Around 25 people turned up at Hargreave Hale and Co stockbrokers in Springfield Road on Tuesday (August 8) for what one campaigner called a "peaceful protest". One of the company's offshoots, Progress Nominees Ltd, looks after 730,000 shares in the lab for various shareholders and it is this connection that protesters said they were determined to stop.

Protester Sarah Hill said undermining the financial support for HLS was one of their key aims and they hoped that Progress Nominees Ltd would stop dealing with the shares due to their persuasion.

Sarah said: "We have undercover footage of workers punching and kicking beagle puppies and this is completely illegal. "All we want to do is sit down and talk to them and put them in the picture but they don't seem to want to listen."

Stuart Brookes, a partner in Hargreave Hale and Co, confirmed that they do hold shares for people in HLS.

But he said: "I won't talk to the protesters but I am in the process of arranging a meeting with someone higher up next week."

Stuart went on to say that he and his colleagues do not condone any unneccesary animal testing or cruelty and sympathise with those who fight against it.

He said: "The Partners would like to point out that neither this company, nor any partner in Hargreave Hale & Co own shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences.

"No partner or member of Hargreave Hale and Co staff had any influence in the decisions made by its customers to purchase and hold these shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences."

Andrew Gay, marketing director for HLS in Cambridge, said: "There was a single incident here four years ago when a dog was hit but apart from that the care for the animals is the best it can be under the circumstances.

"Animal testing is demanded by governments all around the world and there is no medicinal drug available today that hasn't been tested on animals."