A GROUP of demonstrators targeted the York office of an insurance firm which they claim supports cruelty to animals.

The group of nine protesters from the York and Leeds branches of the Animal Protection Society, shouted their claims through megaphones, unfurled a banner and waved placards outside the offices of Marsh Private Client Services, in Lysander Close, Clifton Moor, yesterday.

They said that Marsh UK, which has its headquarters in London, provides insurance services to Cambridgeshire-based animal experimentation firm Huntingdon Life Sciences, which they describe as "notorious animal torturers".

Sarah Dawson, of York Animal Protection Society, said: "We ask that the people of York take notice of what we are trying to achieve as animal experiments not only involve horrendous animal cruelty, the majority of which is hidden away behind closed doors, but they also cause illness in human beings."

No-one from the office would speak to the protesters. The doors to the building, which also houses a completely separate firm, Your Hotel, had been locked and a security guard was standing inside.

A spokeswoman for Marsh UK said: "Marsh's policy is not to comment about any of its clients, and therefore we cannot confirm or deny a relationship with Huntingdon Life Sciences."

The demonstration attracted the interest of workers in neighbouring offices.

At one point, a man from a neighbouring office stripped to a pair of shorts and, with a yellow rubber glove pulled over his head, briefly ran into the car park mimicking a chicken and then disappeared back inside.

Updated: 11:35 Friday, March 29, 2002