Press Releases & Updates 2001

Eric Wallace, a retired boatyard owner from Helensburgh, Brian Quail, a retired teacher from Glasgow, Barbara McGregor, an artist from Glasgow and Jane Tallents, a peace campaigner from Helensburgh, blockaded Faslane naval base with the other members of the Trident Ploughshares "Local Heroes" affinity group in April 1999.

Acting for Jane Tallents solicitor Terry Gallanagh made a submission of "no case to answer" after the Crown case was complete. Quoting from the Law Lords’ Opinion given in the case of Smith V Donnelly he argued that the case against the four did not match the useful clarification given in that Opinion. The submission was rejected by JP Viv Dance.

All four accused took the witness stand. Barbara told the court that causing traffic to back up a little was an utterly trivial matter when compared to the threat posed by the nuclear arsenal inside the base. Jane said that there was no evidence anyone had been distressed or alarmed. She had spoken later to a submariner who had been held up in the queue of traffic. His comment had been: "Good for you!" Brian said that it was a funny old world in which people who spat on children as they tried to go to school in Belfast went scot-free while he and his friends were brought to court for such a trivial business. Eric told the court how the great cost of Trident condemned people to lives of poverty. Reverting to Scots dialect he said: "There cannae be any fairness in that!"

The JP said she was finding them not guilty on account of the inconsistences in and the lack of quality of the Crown evidence.

Jane Tallents said: "It’s clear from the recent Law Lords’ Opinion that the actions we take are, in a legal sense, at the margins of what can be considered a breach of the peace. Actually our protest is quite reasonable and this Opinion will help give us legal authority to make our case in court."

Printer friendly version

Home | Top