AN ANIMAL rights protestor from Evesham was left with life-threatening injuries after she was assaulted by an off-duty police officer at a demonstration, a court was told.

Midwife Lyn Sawyer, aged 34, broke her leg in four places and suffered a facial injury that required plastic surgery when PC David Manton pulled her from a 15ft scaffolding being used to block the road.

Miss Sawyer, a member of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Group, was left with one leg an inch shorter than the other as the result of the alleged assault on the AI at Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire, on July 29, 2000.

Manton, 49, pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to Miss Sawyer at Peterborough Crown Court on Tuesday.

Mark Norman, prosecuting, said that protestors erected tripods, using scaffolding poles, to put a banner across the road voicing the group's objection to research firm Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Manton, who was off duty, stopped and shouted to Miss Sawyer to come down. "When she refused he shook one leg of the scaffolding," Mr Norman said.

"His actions were reckless to a great degree. It was a gratuitous act, it was wrong, criminally reckless and stupid."

In a police interview Manton said he took hold of the scaffolding pole to see how heavy and rigid it was.

"All I could see was this poor woman tangled up with whatever it was made of," he explained.

Miss Sawyer told the court she was using a mountaineering harness to attach herself to the scaffolding and a rope ladder to climb up it.

She said when a man in motorcycle leathers approached her and shouted for her to come down she felt scared.

"He was very, very angry and aggressive and I was in fear of my life," she said.

"He pulled at one of the legs and I came crashing down."

She said that as a qualified nurse she knew she had broken her leg and felt she had suffered life-threatening injuries.

Questioned by defence counsel Maura McGowan if she was prepared to use violence to further her aims, she replied: "I have no control over what other people do. I would never use violence."

She said the purpose of the protest was purely a publicity stunt to highlight the suffering of animals at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

The case continues.