Four held over body snatch

Sep 27 2005 By James Cartledge, Evening Mail

POLICE hunting the remains of a pensioner snatched from her grave arrested a Birmingham man today in a series of dawn raids.

Officers swooped on an address in Edgbaston and detained a 36-year-old suspected of desecrating 82-year-old Gladys Hammond's grave in Yoxall, near Lichfield, last October.

Four other people were arrested at the same time in Wolverhampton, Manchester and at Burntwood, near Lichfield.

Mrs Hammond's remains were thought to have been taken by animal rights extremists because she was a relative of the Hall family, which bred guinea pigs for medical research at Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, near Burton-on-Trent.

The other suspects arrested today were two men and two women. Four of the five were detained on suspicion of conspiring to blackmail the Halls. The fifth, a 23-year-old woman arrested in Wolverhampton, was accused of obstructing police and assaulting an officer. They were all being questioned today at police stations in Staffordshire and the West Midlands.

The operation was led by officers from Staffordshire Police's major investigation department.

The desecration of Mrs Hammond's grave stunned villagers in Yoxall. Police described the theft of her remains as "sick and depraved".

The Halls recently announced they intended to stop breeding guinea pigs for research after suffering years of abuse and intimidation at the hands of animal rights extremists.