ANIMAL rights activists are this afternoon demonstrating outside a Herefordshire-based research lab.

Around 60 protestors have gathered outside Sequani Ltd in Ledbury to protest against the company’s use of animals in developing human and veterinary medicines.

Police support units are on standby at the scene and are allowing a maximum of 15 protestors at a time to demonstrate outside Sequani.

The rest of the group have been kept on a strip of land opposite the town’s train station.

The five-hour protest, billed as the ‘Carnival Against Vivisection’, is also a show of support for Malvern campaigner Sean Kirtley who was recently jailed for four-and-a-half years for his part in organising a campaign of “intimidation and harassment” against the company’s staff and businesses that Sequani used.

Many of those attending followed organisers’ advice to wear green and black.

In recent weeks, police had been keen to speak to the organisers but this never materialised.