An animal rights campaigner barricaded herself into a hotel room in protest against a company taking part in a pesticide conference.

Lynn Sawyer piled furniture against the door of room five of the Kent Suite at the Hilton Metropole Hotel on Brighton seafront yesterday, while delegates of the British Crop Protection Council conference were taking a lunch break.

Ms Sawyer, a midwife from Worcester, had travelled to Brighton to join a group of campaigners from Sussex and other parts of Britain who were campaigning against vivisection laboratory Huntington Life Science (HLS), which had a stand at the conference.

Ms Sawyer said the protest was peaceful and added: "I'm in this for the animals and the people affected by the pesticide industry. It's nothing personal against the hotel but if they will host animal abusers then this is what they will get.

"I got into this because I was delivering babies and thought of what sort of world was I bringing them into."

She blamed the pesticide industry for birth defects and damage to the environment.

Other protesters stormed the building and said they got into rooms reserved for conference delegates before being ejected.

One campaigner, Joseph Dawson from London, said: "We are warning the conference delegates that if they work with Huntington, we will demonstrate against them too."

Police arrested two people.

One was arrested on suspicion of burglary, the other for burglary and theft of passes and for allegedly drinking three bottles of beer.

A spokesman for the hotel said: "We are not involved in the agenda of the conference and we are not a political organisation."