Press Releases & Updates 2002

Sylvia Boyes, 57, from Keighley in Yorkshire and Peter Lanyon, 68, from Leiston in Suffolk both wrote to Helensburgh District Court saying that they would not be coming. Both have indicated that they regard it as a waste of their valuable time to travel long distances for trials in Helensburgh. Sylvia said: "When the world is so full of oppression, murder and threats I do not feel that it is a good use of my time to travel to a court which has heard from me on countless occasions the case against Britain’s weapons of mass destruction and has paid no heed whatsoever. Frankly, there are more important things to do."

Their refusal is one more indication of the growing impatience with the courts among people who have taken direct action against Trident.

In the same court today Eleanor Cook, 21, a student from Edinburgh, was admonished after being found guilty of a breach of the peace at the Big Blockade of Faslane last February. Louise Robertson, a Women’s Aid worker from Renton, appeared after failing to pay a fine of £150 imposed for her part in the Big Blockade. Today she told the court again that she had no intention of paying. Justice of the Peace Duncan gave her a 30-hour Supervised Attendance Order, which in theory should provide opportunities to challenge her "offending" behaviour and is likely to have an element of community service.

Trident Ploughshares comment: "Presumably JP Duncan felt he had few options in dealing with Louise. At least he had sense enough not to send her pointlessly to the already overcrowded Cornton Vale. The choice of a Supervised Attendance Order is only marginally less daft. It would have been obvious to him that the order would not reduce Louise’s commitment and her diary is already full of community service and activism. We can wonder whether the third option was considered, that of remitting the fine on the basis that there was nothing criminal in her behaviour."

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