Wildlife presenter Anneka Svenska stated she was left shaken after two police officers visited her home in June to discuss a social media post she made criticizing a beagle testing site. Svenska, an animal rights campaigner, described the encounter as an "attack on free speech." The officers informed her that a complaint had been lodged by MBR Acres, a facility in Cambridgeshire that breeds dogs for the animal testing industry. The company accused Svenska of "making false allegations" in a video posted online in January.
MBR Acres, owned by Marshall BioResources, reportedly breeds approximately 2,000 beagles annually for use in research by universities and private laboratories worldwide. The facility is licensed to conduct animal testing, including procedures that activists have described as bleeding dogs to death by inserting needles into their hearts and harvesting their organs. Opponents have maintained a protest outside the site, known as 'Camp Beagle,' since 2021.
Officers offered Svenska a "community resolution," a police measure for low-level offenses, which would have required her to complete two online courses: 'thinking skills' and 'impact of crime.' However, after seeking legal counsel, Svenska declined to sign the agreement. She expressed concern that signing the document would have resulted in her being listed as an "offender" and potentially disclosed in background checks.
Svenska maintained that her claims about the site's animal disposal practices were accurate and had been verified prior to publication. Following her refusal, the police closed the case, and no further action was taken.
"It's rather frightening that a company can make a complaint about somebody like me and have two officers turn up on my doorstep like that," Svenska said. She questioned why police resources were directed towards campaigners rather than what she termed "violent criminals, burglars and stalkers." Svenska, who hosts the YouTube series Animal Watch, warned other campaigners to seek legal advice before agreeing to community resolutions offered by police.
She added, "If campaigners can face police intervention after speaking out about one of Britain's most controversial animal industries, where does that leave freedom of expression on animal welfare? Or indeed freedom of expression on the whole?"
MBR Acres has faced significant opposition from various figures. In early 2024, celebrities including Amanda Holden, Dame Joanna Lumley, and Jonathan Ross, along with cross-party Members of Parliament and animal organizations like Peta and Animal Rising, sent a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood calling for MBR Acres to shut down. Other notable signatories included BBC presenter Chris Packham and actor Ricky Gervais, who in July 2021 urged an "immediate ban" on the site, stating that its experiments "entirely fail the search for human treatments and cures."
Previous protests against MBR Acres include singer Will Young chaining himself to the facility's gate in November 2021, and activists filming inside the premises. Svenska herself has a history of animal welfare activism, including campaigning against the Yulin dog and cat eating festival in China and wearing a large hat at Royal Ascot in 2016 to protest horse deaths in racing.
Lord Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, commented that the Online Safety Act, intended to protect children, was being misused by "overzealous police officers" to shield companies from criticism. He praised Svenska for rejecting the community resolution, stating she would have been "saddled with this record for doing nothing more than exercising her democratic rights to free speech."