PROTESTERS heckled Lord Hanson, one of Britain's most controversial industrialists, as he chaired his penultimate annual shareholders' meeting of Anglo US industrial giant Hanson plc yesterday.

The 74 year old chairman's hour long address was interrupted by taunts and shouts alleging the group exploited workers and nature in the US, where its interests include mining.

Security guards removed several: people from the meeting in London's Barbican Hall where 2,000 shareholders had gathered for the presentation of the company's results.

The hecklers returned to try to pressurise Lord Hanson when he: took questions later, attacking his personal style and the company's business culture, and seeking pledges on the environment.

Lord Hanson, due to retire next year when he reaches 75, struggled to ride the storm and scolded the activists for their "rather objectionable behaviour".

He was momentarily stuck for words by impassioned pleas from two native Americans for more protection of their lands and way of life near the Black Mesa coal mining operation in Arizona.

Amid shouts of "patronising" and "stage managed", he said Hanson was doing what it could to help.

The interruptions marred a day when company directors had hoped to celebrate a new plan to demerge the group into four separately quoted parts.

The plan, announced on Tuesday, has stirred doubts among British investors worried that Hanson may not produce the same high dividend rates in future that it has done in the past.

However, shareholders ended the meeting by passing a symbolic vote to approve the company's 1995 accounts in the traditional fashion with an overwhelming majority show of hands.