Animal Rights protester Cynthia O'Neill ambushed a service commemorating 5O years of the National Health Service.

And campaigners fighting to save Oxfordshire community hospitals from closure used the occasion to hold their own silent protest against the cuts.

Mrs O'Neill, of Milton-Under- Wychwood, shattered the silence in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, by belting out a speech against vivisection. Her outburst came as the congregation had been invited by the sub-Dean, the Very Rev Robert Jeffery, to reflect in silence on the achievement of the NHS.

Mrs O'Neill stood up and told those present, who included many dignitaries, that animals had been "abused" in hospital vivisection labs for many years.

Supt Cressida Dick, of Oxford police, who was there as a member of the congregation, helped cathedral staff escort Mrs O'Neill from the building.

She could now face prosecution under public order acts.

Before the service, campaigners fighting to save Oxfordshire community hospitals from closure mounted their own protest.

About 30 protesters with placards, most of whom had travelled by coach from Wallingford, held a silent vigil outside the cathedral.

Burford Cottage Hospital and either Watlington or Wallingford Community Hospitals are set to close under a package of cuts.

Pat Granados, leader of the campaign to save Wallingford Hospital, said: "This is a service to celebrate 50 years of the NHS. We see that closing Wallingford Hospital is an abnegation of all that the NHS stands for."

A ward at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, closed at the weekend for the summer as a result of staff shortages over the holiday period.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.