Press Releases & Updates 1998

Yesterday at Dumbarton Sheriff Court Ian Thomson, a 57 year-old joiner and campaigner, was found guilty and admonished by Sheriff Fitzsimmon. He had been charged after cutting part of the perimeter fence at Coulport Naval Armaments Depot, where the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons are stored and maintained, as part of the Trident Ploughshares direct disarmament campaign.

From the witness box Ian explained that his aim had been to begin the demolition of the entire base. He had been acting to uphold international law by which Britain’s weapons of mass destruction are held to be unlawful on account of their horrific nature and their ever-present threat to the safety of people and the environment. The Sheriff acknowledged the sincerity of Ian’s belief but did not see that he had a "reasonable excuse" for acting as he did. In line with similar recent myopic judgments Fitzsimmon could not see his responsibility as extending beyond Scots Law , as if that entity existed in a self-contained bubble.

Meanwhile the Scottish Prison Service continues its campaign of misinformation about the abuse of disarmers on remand at Cornton Vale Prison on the 18th/19th September. In his letter to Alex Falconer, MEP, SPS Chief Executive Eddie Frizzel claims to be assured" that at no time was any prisoner left in a naked state" and that staff were "using approved control and restraint methods." Angie Zelter has given consistent testimony that she was subjected to excruciating physical pain, that she was left naked in a cell and that a prison officer threatened to break her leg.

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