Press Releases & Updates 2001

The Sheriff’s bizarre remark was made in Dumbarton Sheriff Court on 29th October as he fined Ludwig Appeltans and Harriet Jones £200 each for cutting the perimeter fence at the Coulport nuclear missile store in August this year. He said: "I look upon you so-called peace protesters as parasites, causing untold damage to fences, disrupting the base and wasting this country’s money which could be spent elsewhere."

The campaign letter to the Lord President of the Court of Session, who is responsible for the administration of Sheriff Courts in Scotland, seeks a withdrawal of the remark and an apology and says: "The nature of our campaign means that we have frequent court experience. We are deeply distressed and indignant at the continuing and shameful failure of the Scottish justice system to address the criminality of the UK state in its active and threatening deployment of Trident and while some magistrates and sheriffs do deal with our cases with a level of professionalism and courtesy, we meet with a good deal of incompetence and bias. This remark by Sheriff Smith is however of a different order. It reveals an appalling level of prejudice allied to grievous personal vilification. His diatribe encompasses thousands of people he has never met and knows nothing about. It is a flagrant abuse of his judicial privilege."

Meanwhile concern about the competence and even-handedness of the local courts was again expressed after a Sheriff at Dumbarton Court found Jenny Gaiawyn, a marine biology student in her early twenties at Bangor University, guilty of a breach of the peace for her part in the Big Blockade in February. The Sheriff deferred sentence for social enquiry reports and refused to negotiate on the date for Jenny’s recall. Jenny said: "We show what respect we can to the courts but today I got none in return. The Sheriff dismissed my defence arguments without considering them and would not let me explain that the recall date she demanded was right in the middle of my practical exams." When Jenny tried to make her point she was told to leave under a threat of contempt of court. She stood her ground, as did supporters in the public seats, and the court officials then abandoned the courtroom.

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