Animal rights activists staged a dramatic protest today as they attempted to stop two live export trucks from crossing the Channel.

There was a heavy police presence as the Kent Action Against Live Exports (KAALE) group protested near the Port of Ramsgate earlier today.

Protestors could be seen bunching around the vans and chanting, as well as pressing banners up against the cab windows.

One man slowly cycled in front of the transport trucks as they came around the roundabout- a tactic that is used to force the driver to slow and eventually stop.

However, this risky method has gone wrong before, when a protester was nearly run over at the same port last year.

Thankfully for everyone involved, a similar incident was not repeated in today's protest.

A KAALE spokesperson said: "Some of us have been protesting for more than 25 years, and this is just one way of doing that.

"I've worked with sheep for a lot of my life and I can tell you that they're not the stupid, emotionless creatures we might like to think they are, they feel fear just as much as all of us.

"They're all shoved together in inhumane conditions to face slaughter or further fattening on a veal farm, it is totally unnecessary and cruel.

"We have an agreement with police that we can stage a two-minute sit-down protest; it's hardly endangering the driver of the lorry.

"When they're stopped, we have a video crew that can get film of all three stories of the van, with which we want to show people just how inhumane this practice is."

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