There is something very unsettling about the sight of Huntingdon Life Sciences being hounded out of existence.

The firm's future as a public entity was this week pushed further into doubt as one of its two market-makers was intimidated into quitting and the other walked away as it will not operate alone. Without marketmakers, it is much more difficult for investors - the lifeblood of any public group - to buy and sell the shares. Previously, intimidation and violence have scared off banks and institutional investors.

Huntingdon is a research facility working for the pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnology industries. Its "crime" is that it uses animals in product testing.

Opposition to animal testing is a perfectly valid position and one that can reasonably be pursued through information campaigns, protests and boycotts. It crosses the line when individuals with whom one does not agree are subject to violence and intimidation. That is the same treatment the protesters find abhorrent in relation to animals.

Leave aside for a moment the importance of the industries for which companies like Huntingdon work. Leave aside even the confusion over whether animal life is worth more or less than human life. The idea that a zealous mob can silence a person, a group or a company has chilling echoes of darker times in the last century. What a pity then that banks, brokers, business and the broader community has stepped aside and allowed it to happen.