Press Releases & Updates 2006

Representatives of the Plymouth Trident Ploughshares group, the Tamarians, arrived at Camel’s Head gate at 2:30PM TODAY to deliver a letter to Commodore Simon Lister (Commander of HMNB Devonport) regarding the illegal, dangerous and immoral refits of Trident submarines currently being carried out at the base.

We had been in touch with an MOD Press Officer over a week ago to confirm our arrival and had been told that delivering a letter would not be a problem, although no naval officer would be available to accept it. We accepted this. The Navy now denies this conversation took place and claim they had no warning of our arrival.

Today, within 20 minutes of my departure for a final conference with other Trident Ploughshares members in attendance, I was called and told of the following conditions:

We were not to be allowed up to the gate.

The gate could not be photographed or filmed.

There was to be no photo opportunity.

The guards on the gate may not even accept the letter, let alone deliver it the Commodore.

The security personnel would not be photographed or filmed. This we were happy to accept.

Given that I was within 20 minutes of leaving, I had no time to alert the media to this sudden, unexpected and barely workable change of plan. To any media representatives present, we issue an unreserved apology for a situation that was NOT of our making.

If these conditions were standing security procedures, then the original MOD Press Officer could have informed us of this when I contacted him over a week ago.

And, given that National CND have successfully delivered at least one letter to HMNB Devonport, and had it received by a Naval officer, we wonder about the motivations behind our shabby and disrespectful treatment at Camel’s Head gate today.

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