The small town of Diss had probably never seen anything like it as a large crowd assembled in the park for a march on Saturday 27th April to mark World Day for Laboratory Animals - highlighting the plight of the animals inside the notorious HLS. There were impassioned speeches from Dawn, Amanda, Tom and Kerry.

Then the demonstrators took to the streets of Diss carrying hundreds of banners, the noise was deafening as we called for the closure of HLS, people banged drums, blew whistles, used air horns and sirens. Diss is the home town of many of the animal abusers who work at HLS's Occold lab, the lab where workers were exposed for drug dealing in the laboratory and talking about having a 2-3 hour lunch break in the pub, one worker was convicted of drink driving on the way into work (job getting to you!), she would have gone onto poison the animals to death that day with what should have been accurate amounts of test substance. As we marched through the town the shoppers stopped and watched our march, the people of Diss were left in no doubt that we will close HLS. Hundreds of leaflets were given out to the shoppers and the response we had from the public was great, they were very supportive as they took our literature and some even joined in the march. Once again we have been on the doorsteps of HLS to name and shame them in their own backyard!

We then headed to the lab at Occold, only to find Suffolk police trying their best to impose Section 60 (searches of vehicles and persons) and to try and use this as a delaying tactic - (when will they coppers ever learn, Suffolk don't have much of an idea) there are two ways of dealing with us, the easy way and the hard way - they chose the hard way. At that point we all got out of our vehicles on the road where we were stopped , locked them and walked to the gates of the lab. Suffolk coppers had issued a Section 14 for the lab, paragraph 3 stated we could not make any noise through megaphones, air horns, whistles. drums - in fact anything that made a noise. This was completely outrageous, Superintendent Paxton, it was not only outrageous but it was unlawful!

So we stood outside the lab and made as much noise as possible on megaphones, drums, whistles, and anything else to hand. We could make a fortune suing Suffolk for being told we can't use megaphones!

As more enraged protestors arrived , the wide open fields almost invited them to go running towards the lab, which is exactly what they did. They charged across the fields and surrounded the entire laboratory, some people cut through the fence at the back of the lab. Police chased after them and the helicopter hovered above and attempted to issue Section 14 over the sound system which was obscured by the sound of the engine.

After some time demonstrators left and made home visits to workers: MA Himpson, 18 Ransome Ave, Sole, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4EA tel: 01379 741 668; Trevor C Cowlyn, 1 Chapel Close, Pulham Market, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4SS Tel: 01379 608 294; R Sapey, 48 Dereham Road, Honingham, Norwich, NR9 5AP Tel: 01603 880 667 where at most places the police enforced Section 42 but protestors still made sure the neighbourhood knew they were there.

It was a day overdue and time to put the spotlight onto the Occold site and its disgusting workers, we don't want you to feel neglected so we will be back complete with megaphones and noise!