PROTESTORS have called on the Government to rethink GM crop trials after a site in the North-East was found to be contaminated.

A trial farm at Oakenshaw, near Crook, County Durham, is among 12 sites in England containing an unauthorised strain of oilseed rape, which will be harvested and destroyed.

The discovery, which follows a similar contaminated find in Scotland, has sparked fears over regulations on the GM crops, ahead of the next stage of trials, due to begin on Monday.

Carl Bennett, a former member of the Green Party and founder member of the new action group Durham Resistance, lives near the affected Oakenshaw farm.

Mr Bennett said: "The science is too young to be let out into the British countryside and this problem demonstrates how easily things can go wrong. I only hope the idea is stopped before something dangerous happens."

Richard James, who farms the Oakenshaw site, was not available for comment.

But farmer John Richardson, who has been involved in trials at Hutton Magna, near Barnard Castle, said he still supported the growing of GM crops, although he admitted the mistake "smacked of incompetence".

He said: "I believe GM crops could be the salvation for British agriculture, not growing them would be the demise. Yes, this is a mistake, but causes no threat to safety. Lessons should be learned but I'm no less supportive of the scheme than before it happened."

Aventis CropScience, the firm which supplied the unauthorised strain, said the rapeseed posed no threat to human health or the environment, but that the unlicensed seed would be destroyed.

The company has traced the batch back to a parent seed produced in Canada, although it is not yet known how it ended up at British trial sites