Police have denied trying to restrict a demonstration against a bomb parts factory despite protesters winning a legal victory over the right to protest.

Smash EDO is a group lobbying against the presence of EDO MBM Technology in Brighton.

Sussex Police sent members an email telling them where they would and would not be allowed to demonstrate during what they have labelled their "victory march" today.

EDO MBM, which designs weapons interfacing, fought for months for a permanent injunction banning protests within an exclusion zone around its factory in Home Farm Road.

But it unexpectedly dropped the case last month and agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in costs to the activists.

Smash EDO had been bound by a temporary injunction since last May but now anyone, apart from two named individuals who EDO is still pursuing, can protest wherever they like outside the factory.

Today's demonstration is planned as a celebration of what protesters claim is a victory for freedom of speech and the right to protest.

However, Sussex Police contacted the group last week and said there would still be restrictions on the demonstration.

An email from PC Sean McDonald said: "Attached is a map showing the area where you will be allowed to congregate on March 1 to protest.

"If any protesters meet at the junction of Home Farm Road and Lewes Road and wish to march to the premises then for their own health and safety, they will be escorted.

"Any persons arriving independently will be directed to the protest area for the duration of the demonstration."

Smash EDO spokesman Andrew Beckett said there was no legislation under which the police could restrict a lawful protest on a public highway and inquiries as to what laws the police would be using had gone unanswered.

He said: "Sussex Police and EDO MBM have repeatedly attempted to stifle our legitimate right to protest with various laws and every time the case has come before a court, it has collapsed.

"We are not aware that the police have powers to 'escort'

protesters anywhere under health and safety legislation.

"We hope that Sussex Police behave within their remit on March 1 and do not make any more extra-judicial arrests."

Superintendent Kevin Moore, from Brighton and Hove police, said the force was not trying to restrict the protest but to make it go more smoothly.

He said there was only a small space where protesters converged outside the factory and so they often ended up standing in a busy road.

Police are creating a fenced area to allow more space.

Supt Moore said: "We are not trying to restrict the protest at all. We are quite happy for them to wave and shout and do whatever they like as long as they don't break the law.

"We are trying as best we can to facilitate a peaceful demonstration as we have always done. We will only stop them if they break the law."