Court-Confirmed Evidence

The Bleeding Licence

What MBR Acres is licensed to do to these dogs. These are not campaigner claims. These are prosecution-agreed facts, confirmed on the court record.

Scared dogs in cages - the conditions beagles face at breeding facilities
The Reality

The conditions these dogs face. Bred for one purpose: to be sold to laboratories.

The Procedure in Plain English

MBR Acres holds a Home Office project licence that permits the harvesting of biological products from live beagles and from beagles following what the licence terms “humane killing”. The licence also permits terminal blood sampling under general anaesthetic, from which the dogs are not permitted to recover.

Terminal Blood Sampling

The procedure is cardiac puncture under terminal general anaesthesia.

The dog is anaesthetised and then bled via cardiac puncture.

The dog does not recover from the anaesthesia. This is by design.

The licence language is: “terminal blood sampling under a general anaesthetic from which the animals are not permitted to recover”.

Campaigners describe this as “bleeding healthy dogs to death”. This is supported by the underlying procedure.

Inside a facility like MBR Acres - beagles held before procedures
Terminal Procedures

These dogs do not recover. That is by design.

Bio-Product Harvesting

The licence permits harvesting of bio-products from live dogs.

It also permits harvesting from dogs “following humane killing”.

These bio-products are used in downstream customer laboratories.

The specifics of which products are harvested are not fully public.

Primary and Secondary Availability

The licence has primary availability at B&K Universal in Hull (sister facility).

Secondary availability is at MBR Acres, Wyton.

Both facilities are operated by Marshall BioResources.

The Legal Status

This operates under a Home Office project licence.

MBR also holds an establishment licence under Section 2C of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Under Section 58 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, these activities are exempted from normal animal welfare law.

How We Know This

These facts were confirmed by the Crown prosecution during the open rescue trials at Cambridge and Peterborough Crown Courts.

They were filed as “Agreed Facts” – meaning both prosecution and defence accepted them as true.

This is no longer a campaigner claim. It is on the court record.

Reported by UK Human Rights Blog and Animal Rising.

Commentary (Opinion)

When the prosecution has to concede in open court that the facility it is defending bleeds dogs under terminal anaesthesia, the question is no longer whether this is cruel. The question is why the law still permits it.

What You Can Do Next

The facts are on the record. Now they need to reach every MP, every constituent, every voter.

This page describes licensed procedures using terminology from official Home Office project licences and prosecution-agreed court documents. It does not reproduce any licence in full.