The trail that led to activists.

DAVID Hall and Partners is a family business that bred guinea pigs for the biotech industry for over 30 years at Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, near Burton. Brothers John, aged 57, and Christopher Hall, aged 61, were the principal owners.

Overnight, between September 2 and 3, 1999, around 600 guinea pigs were stolen in a break-in at sheds belonging to the Halls in Newchurch. Documentation was also taken.

On September 9 a protest took place outside Darley Oaks Farm for the first time. Under the banner of Save The Newchurch Guinea Pigs. This continued weekly for six years.

The Hall family and people close to them were sent hundreds of abusive letters and suffered malicious phone calls.

On October 14, 2004, the week after the desecration of the grave of Gladys Hammond, police searched Jon Ablewhite's then home in Larches Lane, Wolverhampton. In the cellar was a bin bag containing documentation stolen during the burglary in 1999.

In Ablewhite's bedroom were photos of the burglary. On the same day a search of the loft of John Smith's home in Riches Street, Wolverhampton, found video footage of the break-in.

Sally-Ann Hall, aged 28, the daughter of John Hall, lives in the Burton area. She received many threatening letters and had paint thrown at her house.

On March 9, 2005, neighbours noticed a green plastic petrol can with cloth in the nozzle on her doorstep. The cloth had been burning but could have exploded.

Two days earlier, Josephine Mayo, wearing gloves, bought a green petrol can.