A price has finally been put on Barry Horne's selfishness. His aborted hunger strike cost the York NHS Trust a staggering £11,000.

Horne will not be troubled by the precious resources he squandered. The animal rights activist appears never to have considered the impact of his campaign on others.

Last week, a judge rejected Horne's appeal against an 18-year sentence for fire-bombing stores in Bristol and on the Isle of Wight.

Those arson attacks could easily have killed or injured innocent members of the public. As it was, the fires he started caused devastation and threatened people's livelihoods.

Horne's decision to embark on his hunger strike last year was equally self-centred. He must have known that the Government would not concede to this form of blackmail.

Already being kept at taxpayers' expense at Full Sutton Prison, he was transferred to York District Hospital. He remained there for 27 days, depriving more deserving patients of a bed and medical care.

Every person who had been languishing for months on a hospital waiting list would have cursed Horne's actions. His protest was aimed at ending animal suffering. But he had no compunction in prolonging human suffering by keeping himself in hospital.

He disrupted every part of the YDH. Even the official opening of our Cancer Care Haven, to which so many readers had contributed, had to be postponed because of the security risk.

All that for a publicity stunt that badly backfired. Horne failed to save a single creature from the laboratory. His credibility was shattered when it became clear that his condition was not nearly as grave as his supporters kept claiming. And the antagonism the hunger strike provoked only set back the animal rights cause.

The full cost of Horne's failure will provoke renewed public anger today. Now we have to decide who foots the bill.

In the past Ryedale MP John Greenway has said that Horne and his supporters should pay. Satisfying though that thought is, the legal costs of pursuing such a claim would be high, and it is unlikely the activists would have the funds to pay up even if the action were successful.

But it is not fair to expect York NHS Trust to pay. Horne only became a patient at the district hospital because he happened to be in Full Sutton Prison at the time.

Local patients should not have to pay the price for his misguided protest. The Home Office should use central funds to reimburse the trust in full.

see NEWS 'Here's your bill, Mr Horne...'

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