An animal rights activist who barricaded herself in a hotel room has been found guilty of stealing a bottle of lager during her sit-in protest.

Lynn Sawyer, 36, took the Budweiser after entering a room at the Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel during a pesticide conference in November 2002.

The midwife, from Evesham, Worcestershire, stacked tables against the door of the hospitality suite, rented by Huntingdon Life Sciences in a protest against the vivisection laboratory.

She was in the room for an hour before police forced their way in and found her sitting on the floor with the bottle.

Yesterday, Sawyer received a conditional discharge at Lewes Crown Court.

Sawyer said there were sandwiches and alcohol in the room but she did not touch the food as she was a vegan.

She told the jury: "Hospitality suites are generally open to people at the conference. Therefore, as a visitor to that conference, I felt I was entitled to HLS hospitality."

Jeremy Chipperfield, defending, said: "Did you consider what you were doing to be wrong?"

Sawyer replied: "Not at all. I consider torturing and killing animals to be wrong."

On Monday, the court heard how Sawyer allegedly tricked her way into the hospitality suite on November 18 by pretending to be a delegate at the British Crop Protection Council conference.

Sawyer denied this, saying she was approached by a hotel employee and asked if she wanted to enter the room.

Mr Chipperfield asked Sawyer if she had posed as an HLS employee.

Sawyer replied: "I would hope no one would ever make that assumption. No, definitely not."

She was found not guilty of a second charge of obtaining property by deception.