Press Releases & Updates 2004

Jane (49), from Granton-on-Spey, was one of 162 people arrested at a mass blockade of the WMD base in April last year and was fined £100 for an alleged breach of the peace.

When she appeared at a means court in Kingussie today she told the court that she had no intention of paying the fine. She also told the court that if it made her the subject of a Supervised Attendance Order she would breach that order. The bench told her that they had no alternative but to imprison her for seven days.

In a statement which the court did not allow her to present Jane said:

“By refusing to pay the fine I withdraw my consent from the system that supports Trident. By locking me up the state admits that this is the only way it can stop me resisting Trident.”

Meanwhile Andrew Gray from Newcastle was fined £250 at Helensburgh District Court for being part of a mass blockade of the same base in February 2002. This was the second part of his trial.

Andrew presented an unusual defence, arguing that his actions had been justified as “pre-emptive self defence” in view of the reality and scale of the threat from Trident. Customary international law allowed for self-defence and this was the basis on which the US and the UK had justified their invasion of Iraq. Justice of the Peace Nicholson said that his guilty verdict was based on the facts as testified to and admitted.

Speculation is growing that the significant increase in fines imposed on anti-Trident activists in the last three days at this court, with a different magistrate presiding on each day, may be the result of new sentencing guidelines for dealing with acts of peaceful protest at the Clyde WMD bases.

A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said: “If this is a new and harder policy then we must be doing something right.”

*HM Prison Porterfield Duffy Drive Inverness IV2 3HH.

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