TEN animal rights protesters who were arrested while disrupting a pheasant shoot near Marlborough more than three years ago have won £30,000 damages from Wiltshire police.

The out-of-court settlement was revealed this week by Midlands solicitor Iftikhar Manzoor.

The ten protesters accused officers of falsely imprisoning them, Wiltshire police have confirmed.

However details of the incident in October 2001, during which the ten were arrested, remain unclear.

The ten arrests were made at Wansdyke Farm, Ham, which was recently sold for more than £4 million.

A spokesman at the farm office was unaware of the incident and said the farm was now under new management.

The campaigners claimed they were wrongfully arrested while demonstrating against a pheasant shoot at the country estate near the Wiltshire/Berkshire border.

It's unclear from a statement issued by the lawyers how the incident unfolded and how the police became involved.

Wiltshire police have declined to comment further than a statement that said: "It is not the policy of Wiltshire Constabulary to discuss individual cases, however, we can confirm that £30,000 was paid collectively in settlement to the ten claimants.

"The settlement was reached without admission of liability."

The protesters' lawyer Mr Manzoor issued a statement this week saying that on October 27 2001 the demonstrators stood next to the shooters, thereby forcing them to stop.

Mr Manzoor said this was a commonly-used method for halting a shoot because, according to gun-handling guidelines, a shooter must break his or her gun to make it safe if approached by a member of the public.

But police were called to the shoot and arrested the campaigners on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm.

The ten who were arrested were taken to a police station in Swindon and detained, Mr Manzoor said. After being interviewed they were released on bail, which was postponed and later cancelled, said the lawyer.

No charges were ever brought.

Describing the police reaction as "over the top", Mr Manzoor said his clients were denied their lawful right to protest peacefully.

"They were deprived of their liberty," the lawyer said in a statement issued to the Press Association.