Press Releases & Updates 2003

The Manchester pensioner was charged with a breach of the peace at the blockade of the Trident base on 6th August, Hiroshima Day, last year. She freely admitted taking part but said her action was justified. Each Trident warhead was eight times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

The protest that day had also focused on Iraq which had suffered twelve years of slow genocide through the UN sanctions and had recently been threatened with Trident by Geoff Hoon. Further, we might have expected that the wholesale broadcasting of radioactive materials through DU ordinance in the Gulf War and elsewhere, with their terrible effects in cancer and infant deformations, should have resulted in an outcry among the general public. Pat was horrified that this had not happened and that we had been softened up to accept the development of "low-yield" nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield.

Pat went on to explain how Trident breached the principles of international law as spelled out in the Hague conventions. It could not distinguish between civilians and the military, its radioactive toxins could not be limited to one target area and it posed a long-term threat to the environment. International law, as enshrined in the Nuremberg Principles, recognised that everyone had a duty to take action against genocide, including the planning of genocide. The protest on that day had alarmed no-one, it was entirely peaceful, there were flowers and singing. The Trident Ploughshares campaign had strict nonviolence guidelines to cover such events.

Justice of the Peace Fraser Gillies fined her £175. Earlier Ivor Birnie (46), from Edinburgh, charged with taking part in a blockade of Faslane on the previous day, also argued that no-one had been placed in a state of distress or alarm by his action. He was fined £180.

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