Former Sheffield Star reporter David Kavanagh has launched his ownwebsite about British countryside issues - quite ironic as he was once areluctant witness in a national court case against Animal Liberation Frontextremists.

The case at Sheffield Crown Court in 1987 made national headlines withheavy jail sentences handed down to ringleaders alleged to be behind thefirebombing of big department stores.

Kavanagh, 38, was sub-poenaed to give evidence about clandestine meetings hehad with hooded ALF members in Sheffield woods where they spelled out theirdemands.

"It was a very odd time. I got the impression the police thought I was incahoots with the ALF, and the ALF thought I was a police stooge," saidKavanagh, who now lives in Buckinghamshire.

"It was a weight off my mind when the whole thing was over and done with."

At one time, Kavanagh was worried he was acting as a magnet for extremists.

When he left Sheffield, he got a job on the Bournemouth Evening Echo wherehe exposed the Ku Klux Klan's attempts to establish a UK base in Dorset - astory he later helped the Sunday Mirror to develop.

Kavanagh, now a married father-of-two, freelanced for national newspapersand magazines in London before moving to the country.

His new website is Country Reflections and deals with British countryside news and views.

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