Press Releases & Updates 2002

Heather, an administrative worker in Bradford University’s Department of Peace Studies, was one of the 170 arrested at the blockade of the Trident submarine base last October.

After the Crown witnesses had been heard Heather put it to Justice of the Peace Viv Dance that there was no case to answer there had been no evidence of the alarm or serious disturbance necessary for a conviction for breach of the peace. After Procurator Fiscal Simpson argued that the court could infer alarm or serious disturbance without direct evidence the JP rejected Heather’s submission and the case proceeded.

Giving evidence, Heather said that she had not wanted to be arrested but had acted as she did because the issue of Britain’s weapons of mass destruction was not up for discussion anywhere in conventional politics. For her, as a mother and a citizen there was no more important issue. When PF Simpson put it to her that she had been blockading people who had jobs to do inside the base she told the court that these were not just ordinary jobs, they were all part of the illegal Trident system.

Summing up, Heather made the point that people who did nothing about Britain’s nuclear weapons were not being politically neutral. In England, where she lived, all the major political parties supported the UK’s unlawful nuclear arsenal and so there was no way to bring the issue to debate other than by civil resistance. She was found guilty and fined £150.

Trident Ploughshares comment: "Although Heather gave a strong legal defence against the charge, which would have been effective in any court that applied the current law, the message she brought to the court was that whatever the criminal justice system does or does not do about peaceful resistance to Trident it must and will go on."

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