RED-FACED animal rights activists found only earthworms when they broke into the University of Central Lancashire (UCLa) hoping to sabotage experiments.

The protesters, believed to be from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), smashed through the roof of the science building on Corporation Street to a store room they thought was a laboratory.

The frenzied campaigners liberated the worms then smashed research equipment and daubed ALF slogans on the walls before escaping unseen.

The university said it does not experiment on animals and has asked the police to investigate.

The break-in was discovered at 9.30am last Wednesday by a technician and is believed to have happened sometime after the building was locked at 5.30pm the day before.

The intruders ripped up Tarmac from the flat roof of the one-storey building and dropped through the hole into what they thought was the Animal Room, a lab where they believed tests on live animals were conducted. In fact it was a store room for sports equipment.

They then slashed a rubber treadmill of a running machine and disturbed the worms which were in trays for soil studies.

The ALF is an underground organisation which often uses illegal action to set caged or mistreated animals free. It has not publicly announced that it was responsible for last week's action.

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