Press Releases & Updates 2003

Pamela Smith from Edinburgh was in Helensburgh District Court for failing to pay two fines amounting to £200 for a blockade and for cutting the perimeter fence at Faslane. She told JP Alexander that she had no intention of paying and was given two seven day sentences to run concurrently. It is likely that she will be released on Thursday.

In the same court Barbara Dowling (58), from Glasgow, was on trial for being part of the Blockade of Faslane in October 2001. She described how she had gone to the event and had at first been content to stay on the pavement and not risk arrest. Then she had seen a little old woman sitting down in the road and she wondered whether she should do likewise. "I did what I usually do in such cases," she said "I asked myself what Jesus would have done. Then I realised that Jesus was already sitting in the road and so I joined him." She went on to say that if some people thought it was right to bomb countries that were suspected of having weapons of mass destruction it must be alright for her merely to sit in the roadway outside a base full of such weapons.

It became clear then that Pamela Smith’s jail sentence was having no deterrent effect as Barbara told the JP plainly that she would not pay the £100 fine he imposed.

Lesley Anderson (19), from Muckhart, was fined £100 for taking part in a blockade of Faslane during the Trident Ploughshares disarmament camp last August.

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