Press Releases & Updates 2002

George McNeilage (38), the Secretary of North Pollock Community Centre, had lain down in the road along with MSP Tommy Sheridan and others at the blockade of Faslane last October. George said he had been willing to risk arrest since he had the freedom others did not have to spend a night in a police cell. Unlike Tommy, who was acquitted on an same charge on 25th June, George was found guilty and fined £250 by Justice of the Peace Fraser Gilles who is currently the subject of a complaint by campaigners following his failure last week to censure a police witness who failed to appear as a witness without reasonable excuse.

Jo Crawford (30), who works for Shelter and also comes from Glasgow, was acquitted when the Crown produced no evidence that he was warned by police before being arrested at the same blockade.

Yesterday, in Dumbarton Sheriff Court, 19 year-old Beatrice Leal, a student from London, was fined £50 for breach of the peace, also at the October blockade last year. A second charge against her, of resisting arrest violently, was dismissed by "the Sheriff when a candid police witness said that Beatrice had not been struggling, "just wriggling a bit".

Beatrice said: It was good to be at Faslane protesting against the Trident threat. I hope that thousands will come from Scotland to the London rally on 28th September to show their disgust at the plans to attack Iraq."

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