Press Releases & Updates 2001

The Crown alleges that Jane (43), a peace campaigner from Helensburgh, committed a breach of the breach when with eleven others she interrupted First Minister’s Questions, dropped a banner from the balcony and shouted out "When will you get rid of Trident?". The demonstration followed closely on the heels of the Scottish High Court’s controversial opinion criticising the acquittal of the Trident Three.

Jane will represent herself and aims to show that there was no breach of the peace. She will claim that the "Democratic Dozen" were justified in raising the alarm about Trident and the failure of the UK parliaments, government and courts to respond to the threat it posed. It is hoped that the Scottish National Party MSP Margo MacDonald will give evidence for the defence.

Meanwhile Helensburgh District Court has continued to punish anti-Trident activists. Today Justice of the Peace Fraser Gillies gave out £250 fines to two Trident Ploughshares pledgers, Ellen Moxley (from Tillicoultry and one of the Trident Three) and Kirsty Gathergood (from Oxford) for their part in the Big Blockade of Faslane in February. Ellen told the JP she had no intention of paying the fine. In a solemn passage Kirsty told the court how she had seen for herself the inside of the Baghdad bunker in which 400 men, women and children had been incinerated by US bombing. The sheer horror of that scene, which would be multiplied many times in an attack by Trident, had made her doubly determined to take action against it. The case against Jean Oliver from Wiston Lodge in Lanarkshire was thrown out when one of the police witnesses made a wrong identification in court.

Twenty more trials of Trident Ploughshares activists are scheduled for next week.

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