If one person stands up and shouts ‘it’s wrong to carry out animal testing’ then they are ignored or seen as cranks. If one hundred thousand people do it then it’s picked up by Sky News. People watch as the thousands of us ‘human animals’ rip up bins and throw them through windows and damage cars, property and the social fabric. That is exactly what I did just the other week. It had taken many months of planning to get the number required. Ok it probably wasn’t one hundred thousand but there were enough of us to take apart most of
‘The Respect Animals and Liberate Life Army wishes to make the following statement:
The day of reckoning has arrived. We the social conscience of this nation have stood up and made ourselves known. Our grievances continue to exist despite our actions. Mostly because what we have done is not targeting the people responsible for the testing of drugs and chemicals on animals. But those actions give us a platform, and give our cause a platform. We will target The Killers they will know that we are angry, we will take the war to them and they can do nothing to stop us.’
A pretty angry statement you might think. Well I wrote it when I was pretty pissed off. My friend who I shall refer to as ‘Ten Commandments’ had just informed me of a video that had appeared on our website exposing the cruel treatment of a baby Marmoset. Its tiny head drilled, and probed and then exposed to toxins causing artificial effects of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Of course the dose was too high, it was always too high, the animal died within moments, but the initial dose was small enough to allow the tiny primate to suffer pains and evils that no human, well apart from the victims of say the Holocaust, would ever have to suffer.
Ten Commandments was an unusual member of our brotherhood as rumour had it that his love of animals went beyond humane treatment, fairness and justice. It was often joked, even among us activists, that he should keep a baboon and not a dog and then no one would question the bright red arse.
“The cunt behind this has to pay.” Ten Commandments said after we saw the video.
“I agree, what shall we do?”
“I dunno, but I know where he lives.” he raised his eyebrows as he replied.
“How?” I said naively.
“How ain’t important, what we are going to do is?”
“OK” I said “So what are we going to do?”
It was obvious what we were to do. We had his address and what more damage could you cause someone scared of you than let them know, that you know, where they live. We wanted him to suffer. The person in question was Bob Bailes. He was the managing director and owner of Drug Research Corp (UK) Ltd based in
It took us a couple of hours before we arrived at Bob’s house. When we got there the house was in darkness, it was around nine in the evening. Ten Commandments dressed in all black, with his favourite balaclava mask, got out of the car and hid in the bushes. I approached the house and knocked the front door.
A dog barked in the rear garden, for a moment I thought ‘I’m sure that sound gives Ten Commandments the horn’ but quickly removed that from my mind. A light came on in the hallway lighting up my face. I stood there in my suit carrying a bottle of wine. The door opened and a girl who could not have been older than sixteen opened the door.
“Hi,” I said, “Is Pete home?”
“Pete?”
“Yeah, Pete Beem, he works in accounts with me. This is number sixty seven ain’t it?”
She looked at me for a second with the ‘wot eva’ stare of a teenager, “No, ya got the wrong house mate, this is forty seven. Sixty seven is back up the lane there in the village,” she pointed over my shoulder into the distance.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
Again she gave me the stare and closed the door in my face. In the distance of the house I could here her muffled voice saying, “No mommy and daddy ain’t back yet. It was just a man who was lost.” Sadly for us Bob was out. I walked back to Ten Commandments who was hiding so well I had to call out in my loudest whisper for him to show himself.
“I’m here” he appeared out of nowhere and walked towards me, “Is he in?”
“No” I said, “Just his kid and a babysitter.”
“Great,” he said removing a revolver from his back pocket, “We are going in.”
Before I could respond he was walking away from me towards the house which had now returned back to its original state of twilight. He rapped his gun on the door. Again the light came on and the door creaked open a little, I walked forward and realised that this time she had secured the door on the chain.
“What do you want now?” the babysitters voice said. She had obviously not looked to see it was yet another stranger.
Ten Commandments didn’t reply, he simply kicked the door with all of his might and it almost flew off its hinges, it struck her in the head and she fell back. A scream of a young girl came from within the house. Ten Commandments raised his gun to the baby sitter and BANG. He shot her in the leg. She screamed out.
I stood there shocked for a moment at what was going on. Sure this wasn’t the plan, but accepting that we had promised to do what ever it took to further our cause I paused. Partly out of fear.
Ten Commandments walked into the house and then ran down the hall and disappeared. Another scream came from the house then I heard another gun shot. I did not know what to do, all my years of campaigning had been illegal in one way or another but I had never used illegal force in such a way and certainly had never used a gun. He reappeared a few moments later carrying in his arms a small child. She only looked about five years old.
“I see you left me to do all the work bud.” He said like a colleague barracking you in the office.
All I could say was “Yeah mate, as usual aye?”
He dropped her into the boot of the car and we got back in.
“Is she hurt?” I said.
“No, she passed out with shock.”
I was glad that she was OK but I was unsure how far Ten Commandments wanted to take the matter.
“So are we going to let her go in the village? We’ve made our point…”
“We ain’t letting her go.” He said. “She’s ours now. That bastard scum fucker ain’t gonna see his little girl again.”
“But… we ain’t about this.” I said and saw a look in his eyes, that if looks could kill, would have sliced and diced me there and then.
“We do what ever it takes. You said that yourself. That’s what I’m doing. Think of the suffering fucking animals…”
He paused for a moment and I noticed tears running down his face.
“You know I’m all for the cause mate, but we don’t kidnap children, it ain’t the kids fault is it?”
“We have to make him suffer, and when he knows what pain his actions have caused his precious little kiddy, he’ll have to change. If he don’t he’s next. I’ll kill him myself.”
I didn’t reply to this. What could I say? He was so angry, so mad. The speedometer touched almost sixty miles an hour as we sped out into the darkness of the countryside that night. After about twenty minutes he slowed down and began to indicate left off the road onto a dark deserted path.
“We’re here.”
Again I stayed silent as he drove down the narrow dirt track, the car bumping around, almost touching the high bushes that walled us either side. After a few moments the road widened into a clearing. Ten Commandments stopped and got out. I got out too almost fearing his reaction if I protested at what was going on.
He opened the back door and took from behind the drivers’ seat a small camera.
“This is digital” he proudly announced to me, “We can upload our video straight to the website after we’ve filmed it.”
My heart sank, a video? What the hell did he have in mind?
“You can film it buddy.” He said to me, “…stand next to the car. Make sure you film just me and the girl and the trees. Don’t get anything that might give us away. I’ll have my balaclava on throughout so we won’t get recognised.”
“I dunno” I said, “This ain’t right man. You’re going too far this time…”
I never finished speaking. He took out his gun again and pointed it straight at me. He walked over and pressed its cold steel against my forehead.
“Don’t you ever talk like that; remember the cause, why we are fucking here. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty, OK… OK??”
“Yeah, OK” I said shuddering. I could have crapped myself on the spot. I’ve always thought myself brave, being an animal rights activist you have to have some balls, but I’d never had a gun pointed at me before. The worst that I’d ever experienced before that was pepper spray that the cops threatened me with at a rally in the capital. But they never used it, I feared Ten Commandments would.
He handed me the camera, and gave me instructions. “Start - starts it, and Stop – stops it. Then press save to….”
“Save it” I said.
“Yeah,” he smiled at me, “at last you’re lightening up.”
I couldn’t raise a smile. So I looked down at the camera and pretended to fiddle with it. Ten Commandments went to the boot and opened it up.
“Aaaaaaaghhhhhh” was the sound that greeted him. He leaned into the boot and I heard a thud, then silence. He lifted the girl from the car and carried her over to a tree nearby where he lay her down. She was still conscious because she was mumbling to herself, something about “love you” and “mum” and “Dad”, tears were running down her face.
“Turn the main beam on the car and film this.”
I did as I was told fearing what might happen if I didn’t. The lights lit him up, but only a little by now he was standing some fifteen metres away. I stood in front of the car, held up the camera and started to record. I was glad that the next few minutes appeared to me on a small screen. The small screen gave them a TV quality that meant they could almost be fiction.
“I am TC, member of the Respect Animals and Liberate Life Army, and tonight I will make my point. If the killing of life is acceptable then what I’m about to do is equally as acceptable.”
He then simply held his gun up to the head of the still delirious young girl and pulled the trigger. She flopped back on to the ground in a mess of her own brains and blood. I nearly puked. He had the nerve to simply walk over to me and pat me on the shoulder as I stood there in shock and say “Great job, c’mon lets go.”
He began to undress by the side of the car, removing his dark clothing. I chucked the camera on the front passenger seat through the open window and then leaned over picking up his discarded clothes, “C’mere let me help you with your stuff. You are gonna make news tomorrow TC.”
He laughed.
I slyly took his revolver from his clothing. I dropped his clothes in the boot and as he leaned against the car changing from his muddy shoes into a pair of old sneakers I crept up behind him and pointed the gun at the back of his head. He chatted as he fastened his laces up then turned and fell silent when he saw me pointing the gun at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Sorry.” Was all I could say. Then I pulled the trigger, shooting him in the head. Like the girl his corpse hit the ground with a hard thud but his blood and brains had landed a few feet away.
He had fucked his last dog.
And he’d carried out his last animal’s rights campaign and so had I.
Thankfully during our time together as activists I’d never been so insane and that’s what he clearly was.
I drove back to my home town, dumped the car on an industrial estate and torched it. I found TC’s balaclava came in handy for that. Then I walked the final few miles back home in the early twilight and burned my clothes, showered and went to bed.
The next day it was all over the news. No one could work it out, and even today no one knows the truth. The police guessed during their investigations that TC was the girls’ killer, but no one ever got near me. No one knew about that night except me and TC, the night we both became killers, the night we both were no better than the people we protested against. It was that night I realised that life was sacred but human life maybe was a little more sacred than any other life form.
These days I’m still a vegetarian and I still believe in animal rights but direct action has somehow lost its appeal, I’m sure you can understand why, I’m not a quitter, I’m just haunted by what I had to see and do. But I guess I’m lucky in many ways to still be here to tell this tale at all.