Press Releases & Updates 1999

River (44; also known as Keith Wright), a university lecturer from Manchester, was arrested along with Sylvia Boyes (56), a peace campaigner from Birmingham, in the early hours of 23rd November inside the dockyard at Barrow-in-Furness. They had intended to swim across the dock and board the nuclear weapons submarine Vengeance. They were carrying with them disarmament equipment such as hammers, glue and spray-on varnish.

Vengeance was officially commissioned last Saturday and is scheduled to sail to its base on the Clyde next week. Its departure may be delayed due to a fire on board the submarine on Wednesday morning which required the evacuation of the crew and took over four hours to deal with.

The court was prepared to release the activists provided they agreed to stay at least ten miles away from any nuclear weapons base. River said he would accept that condition if the court could assure him that no nuclear warheads would be within ten miles of the submarine that had been the target of their disarmament. No such guarantee was forthcoming and River was sent back to Preston Prison. Sylvia Boyes reluctantly accepted the bail conditions and was released. The activists will appear in court again on Tuesday 7th December.

A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said:

"Predictably the court concerns itself with preventing legitimate disarmament action by responsible citizens and pays absolutely no attention to the appalling threat to public safety at home and abroad presented by Vengeance."

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