THREE animal activists who took on the Government in a test case over its controversial badger culls have lost their battle.

Research scientist Maximillian Gadstone, Carey Jurczyk, and Chloe Thomas were convicted of smashing up a trap at a cull near Hereford.

The verdict at Hereford's Shire Hall yesterday thwarted their claims that the cull was illegal and the destruction justified to prevent a crime.

Campaigners will now demand that Agriculture Minister Nick Brown halts the trial - to examine the link between badgers and bovine tuberculosis - following revelations that Ministers could break their own rules.

The trio, and another man, Jason Thomas, drove to Netherton Farm, Harewood End, on Friday, January 21, to establish if culls were taking place.

Gadstone, aged 27, Jurczyk, 42, and Chloe Thomas, 21, stamped on the £47 cage while Jason Thomas, 30, waited in a car nearby before undercover police swooped on them. He was yesterday cleared of criminal damage.

The three cage-wreckers all told the court they thought the culls were banned by a European wildlife convention and that a close season ran from December until June to protect lactating sows and their dependent cubs.

But the convention had made no such ban and the culls were due to stop on Tuesday, February 1, until the end of April.

Delivering his verdict, magistrate Dr Ian Hine said the bench accepted the prosecution's argument that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food could claim Crown immunity from the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which makes killing the animals illegal without a licence.

Although the defendants could have justified the criminal damage if they honestly believed the trapping was illegal, they were "mistaken on a point of law, not of fact", so the defence failed.

Jobless Chloe Thomas, of Port Tennant Street, Swansea, was fined £50 with £250 costs and £15.66 compensation to MAFF.

Gadstone, of St Helen's Avenue, Swansea, was fined £250 with £500 costs and the same compensation to MAFF.

Adjourned

Jurczyk, of Vivian Street, Swansea, had a previous conviction for similar criminal damage last year. Sentencing was adjourned until Wednesday, December 13.

Jason Thomas, also of St Helen's Avenue, was awarded travel costs.

6 MAFF is culling badgers following Professor John Krebs' 1997 report, which suggested the animals were a "significant source" of bovine TB.

Since 1972 an estimated 30,000 badgers have been slaughtered as part of the investigation.