Press Releases & Updates 2001

Susan (32), from Amsterdam, is charged, along with Fr. Martin Newell (33), from Canning Town in London, with two counts of criminal damage, totalling £31000, after disarmament work on a nuclear weapon convoy truck at Wittering in November last year.

As a Catholic Worker her aim had been to put the Sermon on the Mount into action but increasingly she had realised that root causes, among them nuclear weapons, had to be addressed as well as their symptoms in the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged people. She had studied the nuclear cycle in detail, from the mining of the minerals to the production of the finished weapon systems, and was fully aware of the great number of people who had died or suffered as a result. Describing the action at Wittering she told how she had used the phone in the vehicle shed after damaging the truck. First she dialled the alarm numbers by mistake and when the operator asked her if there was really an alarm she said no. She then got the internal operator to put her through to a member of her affinity group.

A supporter at Chelmsford Crown Court said: "Susan spoke with great confidence and her integrity shone through clearly. The jury now know that she came to this action after lots of prayerful consideration, as the only possible way to do what she could to disarm Trident."

Justice Alistair Darroch said that the jury did not need expert witnesses to establish the nature and effects of nuclear weapons. The jury would use its common sense on that matter. He is expected to sum up at 11.30. a.m. tomorrow after which the jury will be asked to consider their verdict.

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