Affiliations: Northants Sabs, Hertfordshire Sabs, Camp Beagle, MBR Beagles
Location: HM Prison Peterborough
Mel Broughton, from Northampton, working with associates Lisa Jaffray and David Blenkinsop, is an infamous sab and convicted bomb maker. In 2020 he was released from prison, having been incarcerated since July 2010 for conspiracy to commit arson. Broughton placed firebomb devices under a portable cabin at Templeton College and a cricket pavilion at Queen’s College, Oxford. The explosion at the pavilion caused damage valued at £14,000, but the other bombs failed to detonate. Broughton spearheaded the animal welfare group SPEAK, and had been protesting at the building of an animal testing laboratory at Oxford during this time.
Broughton was remanded in prison again in November 2022 for what he called ‘trumped up charges’. These are thought to be related to the MBR Beagles campaign, started in 2020, against a company in Cambridgeshire.
Broughton and others established a long-term protest outside the facility in 2021.
Broughton is openly assisted and supported by the Animal Liberation Front, a group with a history of extremism and ecoterrorism, as written by the FBI. Like other hunt saboteur groups, the ALF has encouraged individuals to write to Broughton in prison, without mentioning anything illegal, in case they get caught – very upstanding indeed.
Broughton is a member of the saboteur old guard, with over 40 years sabbing and animal rights experience. He also appears to have friends in high places, featuring prominently in a December 2024 live stream by BBC presenter Chris Packham and his step-daughter Meghan McCubbin as they pestered the Cottesmore hunt alongside members of the Northants Hunt Sabs.
At one point in the 3-hour video Packham addresses the camera to talk about the alleged violence perpetrated against hunt sabs, while bomb maker Broughton is still on screen! Irony is clearly dead at the BBC.
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