ANIMAL rights campaigners intent on closing down a research laboratory targeted the North-East works of one of its customers at the weekend.

Four members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac) spent 20 minutes in GlaxoSmithKline's plant, at Barnard Castle, County Durham, on Saturday, shouting at staff and handing out leaflets.

Police were called after the three women and one man were asked to leave by security guards, but took no action.

Shac spokesman Joseph Dawson said: "We did not cause any damage at all, and all we wanted to do was to make a point to the company.

"Glaxo is a customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), who have been exposed as treating their animals in a barbaric way.

"As well as targeting HLS, we are targeting their customers to get them to pull out of the company."

Mr Dawson said that the group would continue to target Glaxo and other North-East customers of HLS, such as Union Carbide, which has a chemical works at Wilton, Teesside.

Protestors are also understood to have staged a demonstration outside the home of a director of Union Carbide, in Marton, Middlesbrough, during the weekend, and handed out leaflets to neighbours.

Inspector David Allaway, of Barnard Castle police, met Glaxo officials last night.

He said: "It was a minor incident. The group ran through the gate when a vehicle came out. They shouted and made their point and when they were asked to leave, they left."

Huntington Life Sciences became a focus for anti-vivisectionists after a Channel 4 documentary showed footage of workers beating beagles inside the plant. Scores of shareholders in North Yorkshire, County Durham, Cleveland and Tyne and Wear were placed on alert after an attack on its managing director in February, which Shac condemned.

But the group did sanction the publication of a list of shareholders, including one Darlington woman who called police in February after leaflets giving her name and address were pushed through her neighbours' doors.