Press Releases & Updates 2004

Helen Steven (60) and Ellen Moxley (68), from Stoer near Lochinver, were both on trial for taking part in the blockade of the base on April 22nd last year. Helen told Justice of the Peace Viv Dance that Trident was still illegal under the ruling of the International Court of Justice in 1996, in spite of the opinion of the Scottish High Court on the Lord Advocate’s reference after the trial of the Trident Three. Her Christian conviction made opposition to Trident imperative. In her words it represented “a loss of mind and a loss of soul”.

Unsurprisingly, in spite of the evidence that her actions had been peaceful she had, after all, been dressed as a flower at the blockade she was found guilty of a breach of the peace and fined £100, with a Supervised Attendance Order coming into force automatically should she fail to pay.

Ellen, who is one of the Trident Three famously acquitted in 1999 after disarming the Trident research barge Maytime, was next on trial. The Procurator Fiscal pointed out that during Helen’s trial it had been stated that she had been locked on to Ellen, and so it would be prejudicial to try her before the same magistrate on the same day. He said she should not be put to the inconvenience of traveling all the way south again for another trial and accepted her plea of not guilty.

Another long distance traveller to the court today was Adam Conway (25), from Kilkenny, who does voluntary work for the Irish environmental and social justice campaign "Gluaiseacht”. When he arrived he learned that the case against him had been dropped because a Crown witness was missing. He did however volunteer to the court that there was a warrant against him for failing to pay a fine of £175 imposed on him for a blockade of the Coulport nuclear weapon depot in August 2001, and that he still refused to pay. Instead of jailing him the JP transferred the fine to his local court, be Kilkenny in the Irish Republic, passing the buck even further than usual!

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