PROTESTERS picketed a Hampshire animal testing laboratory amid claims that scientists are testing the beauty treatment Botox on mice.

Campaigners waved banners and shouted slogans outside Wickham Research Laboratories in Wickham.

Eight members of pressure group Stop Wickham Animal Testing (SWAT), some dressed as mice, demonstrated outside the building for two hours.

One banner read: "Wickham torture chamber 100 yards ahead."

The group claims to have evidence that hundreds of animals, including rats, mice, guinea pigs and rabbits, are being poisoned every day in the labs.

But bosses have denied any such experiments take place there.

In a short statement, a spokesman for the facility said that no animals were used in tests for

cosmetic surgery because it is against UK law.

He would not reveal exactly what type of experiments were undertaken at the controversial lab that attracted numerous protests.

He said: "It is against the law and we don't do it here. But I refuse to discuss anything further."

Protest organiser Helen Nelson said: "We were expressing our horror at the awful abuse which takes place at Wickham Laboratories. They test on thousands of mice, which are slowly being paralysed and are slowly dying. At least 50 per cent of them die."

She said the Botox experiments were being carried out because of a legal loophole.

Research on animals could go ahead because the treatment can be used for clinical reasons - such as the curing of squints - as well as cosmetic.

Botox has become a popular anti-ageing treatment in recent years. Patients are injected with the chemical, which temporarily removes wrinkles.