Press Releases & Updates 2002

61 year-old Pat Sanchez from Littleborough in Lancashire was one of 170 people arrested for a breach of the peace at the mass blockade of the base last October. Pat told Justice of the Peace Gillies in Helensburgh District Court that on October 22nd the demonstrators had been "putting their bodies where their hearts are". For years she had lit candles to float on the water in commemoration of Hiroshima day but the time had come to do more than that.

A supporter in court said: "In spite of Pat’s excellent defence, including a good summary of the case against Trident under international law and clear evidence that she had not caused any alarm to anyone, JP Gillies could not bring himself to apply law or logic."

Dave Rolstone, 55, a boat builder from Wales, rafted into the protected waters at Faslane along with Gillian Sloan and Ulla Roder in July last year. The raft they propelled through the water carried a banner stating "There are no hugs with nuclear arms", a model Trident missile and bright yellow CND balloons. Charged with breaching the bye-laws that define the security limits of the base, Dave turned up to trial today but was told that the case could not proceed without his co-accused, Ulla Roder, who was not present. A fresh date was set for the trial but Dave told the JP that he had already turned up five times for this trial and would not be coming for the sixth.

Meanwhile at Dumbarton Sheriff Court Trident Ploughshares activist Jenny Gaiawyn, a student from Bangor in Wales, was acquitted on a trumped-up charge of assaulting an MOD policeman from the Clyde marine unit. Last January when she was canoeing in the Gare Loch near the Faslane base when she was approached by a patrol boat and an officer was hit by one of her paddles. The police evidence was contradictory and Jenny explained her background in and commitment to nonviolence.

Sheriff Fraser accepted that the officer had been hit accidentally but he did find Jenny guilty of a breach of the peace on the grounds that she was canoeing with no lights and he fined her £100.

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