Jill Phipps

Jill Phipps (15 January 1964 - 1 February 1995) was a British animal rights activist who was crushed to death during an animal rights protest in Baginton, Warwickshire, England, while she was trying to slow down a lorry transporting live veal calves heading for continental Europe via Coventry Airport.
Background
Phipps did well at school but chose not to stay on after the age of 16; she went to work for the Royal Mail (her father was a postman). She had become interested in caring for animals when young, and joined her mother's campaigning against the fur trade from the age of 11. After herself becoming a vegetarian, Phipps persuaded the rest of her family to join them. A local campaign in Coventry supported by Phipps and her mother succeeded in closing down a local fur shop and fur farm. In 1986, together with her mother and sister, Phipps raided the Unilever laboratories in Bedfordshire to protest at their use of vivisection. The group were caught and prosecuted, with Phipps' mother and sister both being sentenced to six months. Phipps herself received a suspended sentence as she was pregnant.
After her son Luke was born, Phipps spent more time caring for him (having divorced her husband, she raised him as a single parent). She attended occasional demonstrations and hunt sabotage meetings during school holidays together with her son. The use of Coventry airport for export of veal calves horrified her, and in January 1995 she walked almost 100 miles from Coventry to Westminster to protest; on her 31st birthday she protested outside the home of the businessman who had organised the trade.
Fatal accident
On 1 February 1995, Phipps was one of 35 protesters at Coventry Airport in Baginton, protesting at the export of live calves to Amsterdam for distribution across Europe. Ten protesters broke through police lines and were trying to bring the lorry to a halt by sitting in the road or chaining themselves to it when Phipps was crushed beneath the lorry's wheels; her fatal injuries included a broken spine. Phipps' death received a large amount of publicity, being brought up at Prime Minister's question time in the House of Commons..He was later sentenced to twenty years in prison.
The continuing level of protest was such that several local councils and a harbour board banned live exports from their localities. All live exports of calves later stopped due to fears of BSE infection. In 2006 this ban was lifted, but Coventry Airport pledged that it would refuse requests to fly veal calves.
Memorial
Jill's Film, with footage of Phipps, the Coventry live export campaign, the funeral, and interviews with Phipps' family was produced and shown for the first time at the Jill's Day 2005 event in Coventry. Memorial events are held by grassroots animal rights groups around 1 February each year.

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