Campaigner with a bone to pick about inbreeding in dogs

The fact that Jemima Harrison had even dared to show her face at Crufts this year is testament to how determined she is to force Britain's pedigree-dog breeders to reform their ways. Among breeders she is, by and large, public enemy number one.

Two years ago her film Pedigree Dogs Exposed aired on the BBC and sent shockwaves through the dog-breeding world. Her undercover exposé shone an uncomfortably bright light on dog shows, and as a result the BBC and the RSPCA pulled out of supporting Crufts altogether.

A passionate lover of dogs who has her own rescue centre, she had grown increasingly worried at how some breeders would happily inbreed their dogs to levels where horrendous health problems were all but guaranteed – all in the pursuit of an aesthetic ideal that is lauded on the dog show circuit. Boxers with epilepsy and spaniels with brains too large for their heads were just two of the more shocking examples she uncovered.