Press Releases & Updates 2001

Anne Kobayashi 60, a social worker from Essex, was found guilty in Helensburgh District Court of breaching the peace on 18th August after taking part in the Big Blockade of Faslane in February this year. She was found guilty and fined £250 by Justice of the Peace Fraser Gillies from Rothesay. Yesterday the Scottish High Court agreed that the sentence was excessive and reduced it to £175.

A TP spokesperson said: "While our main beef against the local court is the fact that they continue to punish people who are trying to uphold the law, JP Gillies takes the biscuit for his punitive approach. Following this successful appeal we will be writing to the Argyll and Bute Justice Committee with a plea that they put their house in order."

Two Trident Ploughshares activists were on trial in Helensburgh District Court yesterday. Roz Bullen, from Edinburgh, played her part in a highly successful blockade of Faslane on 13th November last year when both gates to the base were closed for four hours. Security personnel were taken totally by surprise when, with three others, Roz blocked the south gate while the north gate was shut by activists on a tripod made of scaffolding poles. Yesterday Roz told the court that the day before the blockade had been Remembrance Sunday. She had been reflecting on the horrors of wars in the past and on the unimaginable horrors of Trident. She argued that the Crown evidence had been contradictory and inaccurate (witnesses spoke of the activists being locked on with chains though none were used on that day), but Justice of the Peace Nicholson found her guilty and fined her £200.

Morag Balfour from Glenrothes and Janet Fenton from Edinburgh were facing a charge of breach of the peace related to the May Carnival at Faslane last year when they snipped the base fence with bolt-cutters. The JP accepted their submission of No Case To Answer on the basis that breach of the peace was an inappropriate charge for what they had done.

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