TWO environmental campaigners who destroyed genetically modified crops after protests were ignored have been cleared of criminal damage.

A jury at Worcester Crown Court took less than an hour to acquit former teacher Barbara Charvet and organic gardener James Ridout.

They argued during a six-day trial that they had a lawful excuse to scythe down rows of 8ft maize being grown on a Ministry of Agriculture test site at Rosemaund Farm in Preston Wynne, Herefordshire.

The research was to investigate the way a GM maize called T25, a herbicide-resistant crop, affected the local flora and fauna.

But Mrs Charvet, aged 59, of Wern Derys, Michaelchurch Escley, and Mr Ridout, 26, of The Lyons, Orcop, both Herefordshire, insisted such tests were dangerous to the food chain by cross-pollination between GM and non-GM crops.

They told the jury millions of pollen grains could be carried for miles on the wind.

The jury cleared them of damaging GM crops and an alternative charge of damaging non-GM crops growing alongside them on the 15-acre site.

The court heard the defendants entered the site on Saturday, August 5, last year and spent two hours hacking down maize. But it was difficult to distinguish which was the GM variety and ordinary maize was also cut down.

Threatened

Police filmed the protesters from a helicopter. They gave themselves up after officers threatened to send in tracker dogs.

Other protestors ringed the field perimeter as the destruction of two acres went on. A minibus of campaigners expected from Cardiff failed to turn up.

The prosecution had argued the damage was illegal and done for maximum publicity. But Mr Ridout said he was "fobbed off" by farm staff and attended a local meeting where 300 residents condemned the crop experiment.

"I feared the surrounding crops would become contaminated and create a dangerous situation for myself and others through the food chain," he said. "Soil can be contaminated by the genes and they've found GM bacteria in bees' stomachs."

Mr Ridout said Mrs Charvet, who has a PhD and a permaculture qualification, had influenced him. He had become frustrated by a Government that ignored the risks involved in 45 GM sites.

"They are endangering everyone. My job is to protect us," he said.

Mrs Charvet took part in a demonstration against Tesco in 1998 protesting about the alleged use of GM crops in the store's products. She was encouraged into direct action by a TV film that showed women cutting down GM crops at another site.

"I regarded it as an urgent situation because the crop was about to flower," she said. "I felt obliged to stop the consequences of these trials and protest vehemently against them."