Livestock lorries wrecked by bomb
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by Derren Hayes
• A Cambridgeshire livestock operator is blaming animal rights activists for a fire-bomb attack that caused £150,000 worth of damage.
Michael Speechley was called to his yard at View Farm, Dry Drayton at 02:00hrs on Sunday (23 June) after one of his drivers spotted two of the firm's five vehicles ablaze.
In an effort to save the rest of his fleet Speechley leapt into one of the trucks to move it—he later found another petrol bomb tied to the wheel which had failed to explode.
Speechley runs KJ Speechley and Sons, a 40year-old family business, with his brother Peter. "Two of the bombs were
timed to go off 30 and 50 minutes after the first," he says. "That means they were designed to injure or even kill. All the devices were under the driver's side and I shudder to think of the damage they could have done."
Police later found a third bomb which was defused by the fire brigade. Two Scanias and a barn were destroyed by the attack.
Despite receiving threats at the height of the live animal export controversy, the incident left the Speechley brothers mystified as to why they had been singled out. Peter Speechley says: "We only take cattle and pigs from farms to abattoirs in the UK—we never do international work."