PROTESTORS angry at an oil giant's use of animal testing staged a peaceful protest outside a filling station. Four men held up banners showing pictures of animals mutilated by testing and handed out leaflets to drivers stopping for petrol at the Shell Detling station, on the A249 near Maidstone.

One of the protestors said: "This demonstration is completely peaceful. We don't want to cause any trouble. We are just disgusted with Shell's involvement in animal testing. If people realise that they are involved maybe they'll think twice before buying fuel at their garages."

The men said that experiments that Shell had financed at Huntingdon Life Sciences, an animal testing laboratory in Cambridgeshire, were both cruel and pointless.

While many motorists sounded their horns in support, the protestors admitted they had also been the subject of some abuse.

One of the protetsors said: "We are prepared to put up with it. Animal testing is wrong and has to stop."

A spokesman for Shell UK said the company was aware of a number of incidents involving anti-animal testing protestors at its garages and admitted Shell had been involved in a "very low level of animal testing."

He added: "Of all animal testing done in the UK Shell stands for about 0.02 per cent.

"We have used Huntingdon for one or two tests in the past two years but we deemed this to be necessary."