Press Releases & Updates 2001

Warren Canham was on trial today for last February’s blockade. He gave a straight forward defence after getting one of the police officers to say that if he knew someone had a lethal weapon he would do something about it and that he agreed that nuclear weapons were lethal! Joe Scullion the Magistrate seemed to have taken over the PF’s job and cross questioned Warren!

Several times Warren pointed out that he was locked to Mark Leech whose not guilty plea had been accepted by the court.

He was found guilty and then fined £20!

Fungus had a couple of appearances to set other dates, while 7 day old daughter Tabatha slept soundly in her Dads arms. One more deficiency in the facilities in the court became obvious as Fungus fed the hungry babe on the stairs!

Four police witnesses gave evidence that they saw Ian cut the fence on the two occasions. On the second time he was seen cutting a few strands of fence and even though he asked the police about the 12 sections of fence completely cut down round the corner the Judge said that this would be ignored because no-one saw it being done and it wasn’t in the charge.

Ian said that he had intentionally cut the fence, he was starting to dismantle the base.

Sheriff Fitzsimons found him guilty of all charges. Ian admitted previous convictions. The damage was £200 in each case. Ian had appeared 5 times for this case and spent 2 weeks on remand at the time.

He said he had spent his life constructing things. He detailed some of the voluntary projects he had been involved in but said that the most rewarding project was his present one of restoring beauty to Faslane/Coulport by dismantling the bases. Trident is illegal and immoral... at this point the Sheriff stopped him and said "You said you didn’t want to use that as your defence, it’s in front of the High Court at the moment." Ian asked why possession of a life was illegal but possessions of weapons of mass destruction is not considered a threat?

The Sheriff then said that other judges have been "pretty fair to your colleagues over the years". Referring to the Greenock decision, he disagreed with this - he expects the LAR to say it’s no defence and then these offences will be dealt with much more severely, sentences will be much more substantial. In the meantime he admonished Ian.

Other Legal News

Marilyn Croser spent two days at Cornton Vale last week for an unpaid fine after handing herself in. Marlene Yeo was told to remain within the court precincts until the end of court which turned out to be 1pm for an unpaid fine of £541.

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