Report 1

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This reports the first day proper of the retrial of Stellan and Anneke.

The jury having been chosen the case proper finally got under way at around 11am on Friday 15th October 1999. Anneke is represented in court, and Stellan is representing himself.

Crown Introduces Their Case

The crown started with an address to the jury outlining their case, which was basically that each of the accused was caught inside the fence surrounding the shipyard.

She told the jury that they would not be hearing any denials from the defendants that they had been there -- instead they could expect the defence to claim that they had had a lawful excuse for their actions. She feely admitted that such lawful excuses do exist in Law, but submitted that there is no such excuse in this case.

She said that a nuclear sub had been under construction, and that it was about one week before its official naming ceremony -- she expected to hear accusations from the defence concerning the criminal ownership of this ship.

She then turned to the night in question, and described the two events when the defendants were seen -- the two women being caugt together and Stellan some distance away shortly afterwards. Each when challenged said words to the effect of "I am a Peace Protester, I will come quietly". Each identified to the security guards the tools they had brought and each also had papers with them - including a signed Plowshares Pledge and a declaration of what they were intending to do and why. The prosecutor very kindly read one of each of these out to the jury, and distributed copies so that the jurors could check that the documents found on the others had similar wording.

So it came to pass that the Prosecutor had presented the essence of the defence even before the first witness had been heard.

She then proceeded to call her first witness, a Security Inspector. I was ordered not to identify the prosecution witnesses by name, so you will have to be content with "a security guard" or "a police constable".

The Security Inspector said that the sub was nearing completion and was due to be named on the 19th. He had been on duty on the 12th, when shortly after 4am he noticed two people within the security fence. These proved to be two women, who remained where they were once challenged. One had a rucsac, the other a bag, and he noticed that one of them contained a crowbar. The women were taken in separate cars to the (so-called) briefing room. He then went out again with a police dog-handler, walking together but on opposite sides of the fence. They then found Stellan just inside the fence, and he said "I am a Peace Protester. I will come quietly. This is my equipment" indicating a ladder and some paper just outside the fence.

Under cross examination (X-ex) he had been very friendly. The submarine was indeed the nuclear submarine soon to be named Vengeance. It would soon be equipped with nuvlear warheads but not till after leaving VSEL. He was aware that some of the warheads are manufactured in the US.

In his opinion the standard of security would be much higher at a RN submarine base than at the shipyard.

He was asked by Stellan if he had asked him if he had permission to be there, and replied that he had not needed to ask as he knew that Stellan had no such permission.

Judge intervened and asked if Stellan was claiming to have had permission, and Stellan said "yes, permission from the rightful owners, the British people". The judge refused to let him put that point to the Security Inspector.

The witness agreed that Stellan had made no attempt to escape and had left something at the side of the fence, but the witness could not say what it was.

This was in the Trident Storage area, where equipment was stored linked to the Trident programme.

Stellan asked if he had any knowledge of the effects of Trident, and the Judge intervened to say that he could not "use a security officer as a sounding board".

He agreed that he had been given training regarding a possible nuclear accident, but this related to the nuclear power plant on the ship not to the armaments. He confirmed that the vessel is capable of carrying nuclear weapons and pointed out that it does also carry some conventional arms. The only purpose of the vessel is to carry weapons, both nuclear and conventional.

The second crown witness, a Security Guard, said substantially the same, and I won't report repetitions in detail. In X-ex from Stellan he was asked about duties under international law and replied "I just do a job". He indicated that he had had no info from superiors on his duties under international law.

A statement given by another guard was read out, as the defence had waived their right to X-ex.

The crown said they had several more, all saying the same thing, and declined to read them out.

A Police Constable was then called. She had been in the briefing room with the security guard and the two women, and had searched them. She confirmed the documents found on the women. [pledge, etc]

In X-ex agreed that they had been friendly at all times, but had not noticed if there had been a bible in one of the bags, as she had searched the women not the bags found near them.

Another PC was called, the dog-handler who had been present when Stellan had been found. He confirmed seeing some sort of document at the foot of some steps inside the compound, immediately outside the secure area.

In X-ex on Anneke's behalf he was asked about criminal conduct by the state, and said he had not been asked to investigate those acts as being possibly criminal. Confirmed the presence of a loaf of bread and some bolts in Stellan's bag.

In X-ex by Stellan he admitted it was the first time he'd arrested someone carrying papers concerning their actions, but had not had time to read those papers in detail.

A plain clothes Detective Sergeant was called next [outside court he later gave me permission to identify him as DS Kerr].

He described how he had traced a VISA receipt back to its source, proving that it was Anneke who had bought the ladder shortly before the action.

He and the prosecutor read parts of the defendants interviews, which consisted of a brief statement by each defendant, followed by questions. Each defendant answered the question confirming they are Swedish, but gave a "no comment" response to all subsequent questions.

In X-ex on Anneke's behalf he confirmed that both defendants had claimed full responsibility for their actions.

Stellan asked about his work. It involves the investigation of alleged crimes, Yes. The evidence presented today in court included allegations of crime being carried out in the VSEL shipyard, had he seen these papers? Yes. Has any investigation been carried out? No,

Stellan did not want to put the full responsibility on him: as far as he was aware have any of his superiors ever carried out such an investigation? No.

The crown were going to call the shopkeeper who had sold the ladder, but this witness was withdrawn after the defence magnaminously agreed that Anneke had indeed bought that item.

And that, in less than half a day, was the case for the defence. We all went to lunch, the defendants beiong asked to stay in the court builiding in order to avoid the "embarrassment" of meeting a juror in one of the few local hostelries.

Introductory remarks by the Defence

Anneke's counsel opened the defence with an address to the jury.

There is no such thing as a political trial, yet in some cases, including this one, law and politics occur together. The case certainly raises political issues but the jury has to be aware that the defendants have a proper legal defence.

At this point the judge intervened and pointed out that it is his prerogative to tell the jury what the law is -- the defence could only make submissions about the law and should make them to him not to the jury.

The defence barrister re-worded his comments subtly, claiming that he was not trying to take the judge's prerogative but was merely setting out the position of the defence.

There are three ways in law, he said, whereby the defendants argue thaey were entitled in law to do what they did. These all sound similar, but are not precisely the same as one another.

- they had a lawful excuse for their acts, that is an excuse of a type explicitly laid down by the law

- they were actying to prevent a worse crime

- they acted under what the law calls necessity, that is there were no other remedies available to meet an imminent threat.

He outlined the difference between an immediate threat (of something that is certain to happen very soon) and an imminent threat (which is something that may happen very soon, but may not) and said that the proper legal test was of imminence not of immediacy. The sword of Damocles was an imminent threat, for example.

[classical note from your reporter: Damocles was punished by being made to sit under a sword that was dangling from a thin thread. He was made to beleive that the thread could break at any time. Even though the thread did not actually break, the threat was there continuously for a long time. It was an imminent threat]

He quoted from the Trident Ploughshares Tri-Denting It Handbook, sect 5-6. Anneke acted as she had to prevent a crime. It is important to notice that even threatening the illegal use of a nuclear weapon is a crime even if it is not actually fired, and Anneke acted to prevent both the threat and the action.

Who owns Trident? He referred to the so-called public ownership of nationalised industries even when they were under the control of the relevant Secretary of State. Do we not all own the MoD just as we all used to own the now privatised industries?

He conceded that the MoD have the right to sign contracts to acquire and dispose of property, but said that that did not alter the fact of public ownership. If necessary to prevent crime a person could act without the consent of the owner where there was reasonable grounds to believe that the owner would have consented had they known the full story. His client beleived that to be the case here, and that beleif was entirely reasonable. She had acted in accordance with the knowledge that the majority of the British people oppose nuclear weapons and the beleif that the same majority would have consented to thier destruction had they known the full facts of their deployment.

The third defence is one of necessity. There was no other way of preventing the threat.

These defendants and others before them have tried repeatedly to change the policy on Trident. This sort of campaign can work, as it did at Greenham common for example.

The jury need to consider just what Trident is. He refferred them to the Tri-Denting It handbook, sect 4-2, to the box where the number of warheads is spelt out, and the fact that each on its own is the power of several Hiroshima bombs. Is it not a crime that such weapons are available for use at politicians' will?

There has been a complete lack of democratic process around nuclear weapons, and again if the majority of the British people knew, the majority of the British people would have consented to her actions.

What is our government's policy on Trident?

Rifkind: belief in the mind of the enemy is essential. This includes an enemy's belief in the real possibility of a smaller nuclear strike to tell the enemy that we are not messing about.

The threat is real.

We would not need deterrance if there weren't any nuclear weapons.

They do not prevent wars -- over 100 wars have been fought since their invention.

Politicians do use the bombing of civilians as a political message -- look at the bombing of Bhagdad, which posed no credible military threat to the West at the time. The stated intention is that the politicians can do the same with nuclear weapons.

If they are not fired deliberatley, are they safe?

Failsafe?

Chernobyl? The recent accident in Japan?

We cannot eliminate human frailty -- even the recent train crash shows that. People go through red lights. Nuclear workers ignore guidleines.

The fact that there has not been an accidental nuclear launch does not mean that there won't be one. The fact that there hasn't been a war doesn't mean that there won't be one.

The defence asked at this point (soon after 3pm) if the jury could be excused. It soon became clear that there will be a lot of legal wrangling on Monday in order to determine exactly what arguments and evidence may be put to them, so the judge sent a messenger to tell the jurors not to come in at all on Monday, but to be back on Tuesday.