A PROTESTOR who handcuffed himself to a lorry to prevent it carrying carcasses to a controversial foot-and-mouth burial site was yesterday convicted of wilfully obstructing a public highway.

But Derwentside magistrates accepted that Gavin Thomas had been involved in a legitimate protest and gave him an absolute discharge.

Thomas, 22, who denied the charge, told the court he had "arrested the lorry because it was carrying out an illegal act".

He said, after the hearing: "I am pleased with the outcome and would have been even more pleased if I did not have to pay the £50 court costs.

"At the end of the day, I was protesting for the safety of my family."

Thomas' arrest came after a summer of protests by residents against the Inkerman site in Tow Law.

PC Michael Dunn said police had stopped two lorries outside the site, as agreed with protestors, to give them the chance to ask the drivers where the carcasses were from.

Thomas then handcuffed himself to the trailer of the articulated truck which drove three to four metres before the police stopped the oblivious driver.

The officer said: "I don't know how it never pulled his arm out of its socket. He would have been killed if we hadn't stopped the lorry."

Thomas, of Cheltenham, said residents had given police a letter from the town council claiming the use of the site was illegal.

He said that the truck had been on a private access at the time.

Bench chairman Ethel Hanson said, even if the front of the lorry had been on a private road, the back of the vehicle was still blocking the public highway - even if for only five minutes.