Press Releases & Updates 2001

The eleven were charged with disrupting the Scottish Parliament and causing a breach of the peace. Eight of the activists were present to give a not guilty plea and three others pled by letter. The Crown applied for a bail condition that the accused should not enter the Parliament building until their trials but Sheriff Charles Stoddart varied this to a commitment not to disrupt the Parliament. The activists were released on bail and given a wide variety of intermediate and trial dates in August and September. All those present asked for their trials to be conjoined but Sheriff Stoddart said he was unable to consider that at this juncture. One of the demonstrators, Morag Balfour, from Glenrothes, who will be a parliamentary candidate in the upcoming general election, told the court that eleven separate trials would in itself be disruptive to the Scottish Parliament since MSPs would likely be called as witnesses. Court officers instructed supporters in the public seats not to take notes but when this was queried by one of the accused, Jane Tallents, from Helensburgh, Sheriff Stoddart made it clear that the hearing was in public and note-taking was quite acceptable.

In their letter to the MSPs the eleven said: "We are writing to you now to explain that we did not take that action lightly, without due consideration or out of a lack of respect for the Parliament and the democratic process. ... An alarm call was needed. The shocking truth is that the Parliament had already been in existence for two years and there had been no debate on Trident, nor to our knowledge any plan to have one ... If the formal democratic processes can amble along like a sleepwalker in the face of such a crime by the state as Trident is, in the interests of the health of our democracy, it needs to be wakened."

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