Press Releases & Updates 2001

The protest came from Lance Goodey, a fifty year old man from Glasgow who was in Dumbarton Sheriff Court this morning to explain why he had taken part in the blockade. He had been holding on to the leg of a tripod which was blocking the South Gate entrance to the Base.

Describing Trident as ’that monstrosity which is at the apex of the violence of the State’ he went on to say how alarmed and disturbed he was at Trident which hung like the sword of Damocles over his head. Lance was also concerned that justice was being denied to him because no-one should be punished for the same offence twice and yet the Strathclyde Police had passed details on to the Italian police about this particular charge and he was denied entrance to Italy to take part in the nonviolent protests at the G8 summit in Genoa in July. He felt he had been charged, tried, found guilty and punished for his part in the blockade by being denied entry and forfeiting his airfare of £200.

Lance was one of six people involved in anti-Trident protests who were barred from Italy in July. The incidents raised concerns about the legality of the retention and transfer to a foreign police force of information about people arrested at Faslane especially if, as in Lance’s case, there was no criminal conviction. To date Strathclyde Police have not given to campaigners a satisfactory explanation of how and why the transfer of information was made, raising a question mark against the normally constructive relationship between that police force and the anti-Trident campaign.

Sheriff Morag Galbraith made no comment on this issue and imposed the relatively severe fine of £200.

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