Animal rights protesters were escorted off company premises by police after they climbed a fence and shouted slogans through a loud hailer to staff.

Fourteen members of the pressure group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty peacefully left the site at Littlemore, Oxford.

Protestors attach their banner to the gates at Littlemore

They continued their demonstration outside the gates of the Yamanouchi Research Institute, a Japanese pharmaceutical firm, which the activists claim has links to the animal testing group Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Protester Dawn Gifford shouted on a loud hailer from outside the gates: "We don't want your blood money here. Take your blood money and go home."

SHAC claims that in 1997 the firm, which is based in in Sandford Road, Littlemore, commissioned Huntingdon Life Sciences to experiment on 37 beagles to test a drug that helps bones mend.

Although the experiment was cancelled, SHAC says the research institute still has links to the animal testers because it has not responded.

Ms Gifford, a spokesman for the activists said: "This is the start of an intensive campaign against Yamanouchi. We will be going out to Japan to demonstrate there. We are saying wherever you go we will follow. We will name and shame them."

A spokesman for the firm said the Littlemore site had no links with Huntingdon Life Sciences but would not comment on whether its parent company Yamanouchi did.

A Yamanouchi statement said: "There are strict rules governing the use of laboratory animals in the UK. We deplore any abuses of these standards. We also condemn the intimidatory tactics of SHAC."

Evan Harris, the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, later spoke in support of the company.

He said: "This sort of direct action by the animal rights extremists is unfair on the medical researchers and their families, because medical research in Britain is subject to the most stringent tests anywhere.

"We have a democratic process in this country and one doesn't have to drive out legitimate businesses."