the Newchurch campaign itself, publicly condemned the desecration. Six months later, in April 2005, the BBC and a local newspaper, the Burton Mail, received anonymous correspondence claiming responsibility, signed by the Animal Rights Militia, a banner used by activists willing to carry out acts of physical violence. In March 2005, on the BBC's Crimewatch programme, Staffordshire police asked the authors of anonymous letters sent to the Halls to prove they had the body. As soon as the programme ended, Smith drove Ablewhite and Whitburn to Brakenhurst Wood, close to Darley Oaks farm. Police were tailing them. They stopped them early in the morning and found a collapsible spade, head torch, balaclava and camouflage clothing in the car. On a mobile phone at Smith's home, they found a text message sent that morning. It read: "Flies hoverin [sic], cld be a while". Police raided the homes of Ablewhite, 36, Smith, 39, Whitburn, 36, and Mayo, 38, in the West Midlands and Manchester. They found mobile phone and computer records which proved their part in the campaign. In August 2005, the Hall family announced the farm would close and expressed hope that "the decision would prompt the return of [Hammond's] body." Criminal convictions Conspiracy to blackmail Kerry Whitburn of Edgbaston, John Smith of Wolverhampton, John Ablewhite of Manchester, and Josephine Mayo of Staffordshire, members of the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs campaign group, pleaded guilty at Nottingham Crown Court to charges of conspiracy to blackmail. A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said the prosecution could not prove the four had taken Gladys Hammond's remains, but they had admitted using the desecration to put pressure on the family. On 2 May 2006, Staffordshire police, acting on information provided by Smith, searched woodland near a German war cemetery at Cannock Chase, near Hednesford, and recovered Hammond's remains. The four were sentenced on 11 May 2006, Ablewhite, Whitburn, and Smith to 12 years each, and Mayo to four years. While sentencing them, the judge said that they had also threatened to desecrate the grave of the husband of the Hall family's cleaner. Intimidation On 22 September 2006, John Smith's girlfriend, Madeline Buckler, was sentenced to two years in jail for "intimidation of people connected with an animal research organisation," a charge introduced under the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005. Buckler was found to have sent the Halls menacing letters in November 2005. See also Stop