AN animal rights activist, who has waged a ten-year war against snares in the countryside, has vowed to continue his campaign after losing his appeal against criminal damage convictions, yesterday.

John Gill, 51, said he would go to jail rather than pay £500 in fines and costs imposed earlier this year by Hexham magistrates for damaging 38 snares, and a further order for £520 costs, handed down after his appeal was dismissed in Durham Crown Court.

Gill had appealed against his conviction arguing he had acted justifiably, because he was preventing a crime by destroying self-locking snares, designed to strangle an animal.

But Recorder David Hatton yesterday ruled the snares Gill cut and removed from the Featherstone Estate, near Alston, Northumberland, were free running - meant to hold an animal without killing it.

They were therefore legal under the Wildlife Countryside Act 1981.

Mr Hatton said he understood Gill's feelings of frustration at what he regarded as the unjustifiable inaction of the police to deal with what he believed to be an illegality.

But, he added, instead of destroying the snares, he should have gone to the RSPCA.

Gill, of Front Street, Castleside, near Consett, County Durham, said after the hearing he would carry on his fight against all snares, which caused suffering and death.

He said: "I have continued my activities since my last conviction, and will continue to do so.

"And I will go to jail rather than pay this fine. It shows defiance, commitment and gives me the credit for something I believe in."