A 46-year-old man has appeared in court charged with sending ''indecent or obscene'' material through the post, including to people connected with animal testing for medical research.

Andrew Patrick Kirk, from Swanage Close, Middlesbrough, pleaded not guilty to a total of 18 charges under the Postal Services Act 2000 when he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court.

Alleged recipients included Brian Cass, chief executive of animal testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences, as well as a parish councillor who was a witness in a civil case involving a Staffordshire farm that breeds guinea pigs for research.

Kirk is also accused of targeting an MP and a CPS lawyer, as well as a taxi firm which took cleaners to an undisclosed laboratory.

The exact nature of the letters, sent between November 2004 and February this year, was not disclosed and the case was adjourned for a two-day trial starting on November 7.

Kirk, who appeared in the glass-panelled dock wearing a white T-shirt with the slogan ''Vivisection is Scientific Fraud'', was given conditional bail.

Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire, has been the subject of protest from animal rights campaigners over the last six years and announced in August that it would be closing its guinea pig breeding operations at the end of the year.