Report 5 - Case of Stellan

bread not bombs / english / trial / Report 5 - Case of Stellan

trial
----------
press
----------
articles
----------
about
----------
support
----------
contact
----------
welcome

Report 5 Defence of Stellan

As with Annika, Stellan stuck fairly closely to his prepared ideas.

This contains not only Stellan's evidence but all his other speeches as well. His evidence starts at the heading "Opening Speech / Defence outline" about 1/4 of the way down.

The only differences I noticed were where the judge intervened. Stellan was not allowed to submit any written evidence, and was told more than once to stop talking about the testimony given by a German judge in the last trial. [ Again, I think this intervention by the judge helped him and it certainly did hm no harm ]

He added a short note near the end that he has already been in prison for six months for this offence, that he has been tried before, in front of the same judge, and the only thing different now is "you, the jury". Last time the jury could not make a decision, and he said that that means that a group of them thought he was not guilty. The judge told him that that is not right. [ technically correct: perhaps all of them could not make up their mind either way ].

At the end he added one extra word to his intended last line:
Not bad for a small group of normal citizens trying to take responsibility!

became instead:
Not very bad for a small group of normal citizens trying to take responsibility!

which, whether he meant it this way or not is a superbly English understatement.

Cross examination

The crown do not dispute that you have very strong clear views. You hoped to damage the submarine
- to disarm it

and you hoped it would not be repaired
- that would have been wonderful

but you knew there was what you described as a risk that is might be repaired
- then we would have simply made a delay

Who was responsible for those repairs
- local people earning their daily living because there is no other work in the area

But the British government would be giving the orders for that repair?
- yes

The submarine was constructed in a shipyard, not a naval shipyard
- it is only producing military ships

It has no military personnel?
- no

Who made enquiries about what is being made there?
- we did , by phone

and the submarine was to be delivered to a military base?
- yes, an immediate danger

who owned it?
- the order came from the British government but the righteous owner was the British people, legally the British people, and the moral owners is the poor people of the world.

You became involved in the *Trident* Ploughshares movement in 1997.
- yes, during 96 we were coming up with the idea of a plowshares campaign against Trident, and it started to run in 97.

The crown led Stellan into a short discussion about the way TP2000 had initially tried to negotiate with the government. 31 MP's were on the side of the campaign yet the government had refused to accept any negotiation. Even now this was still the goal. Letters, lobbying, petitions are still proceeding. He emphasised the importance of applying all traditional means before and during them more direct actions.

You gave the government an ultimatum or standpoint
- yes, because it was our legal and moral duty also to disarm Trident ourselves. If they had suggested something different we might have gone with this.

From the 11th to 25th of August there were actions only at Faslane or Coulport
-yes these were the first open attempts. We started at the front gate by reading out once again the obligations of the commander and workers

After 25th August actions could take place at any Trident related sites Handbook section 3-3

The actions were open: your names appeared in newspapers, but for this action you did not announce your arrival
- but yes, it did say in the handbook

The threat posed by Trident before 11th August and after 11th August, was there a difference before and after
- no the threat was the same. But all the time we were waiting we were leaving thousands of children to die. We could as well try to do the disarmament today. What was different was the possibility of making practical disarmament was biggest at that point.

You knew, didn't you, that the submarine was not armed with nuclear weapons
- that is its sole purpose

It also carries conventional weapons
- yes but I have never heard a suggestion that any Trident submarine carries only conventional weapons. The only secret is exactly how many nuclear weapons each submarine carries. There has never ever been any suggestion that there are no nuclear weapons on a submarine. We are entitled to assume they are armed [or will be armed] with nuclear weapons because the government has never made any other suggestion.

You approached the government and commanders of military bases?
- yes, to inform them of their duty under international law, to appeal to them to stop

So you believed they had the power and authority to dismantle these weapons
- they have the practical control. It is obvious they are a key party to any disarmament.

Why bother with approaching the government and the commanders?
- we are bothering with approaching everyone who is having any chance of taking any steps to disarmament.

What steps did you take to gain the consent of the British public?
- I've been visiting Britain since 1988. I saw Polaris. I have been to peace conferences. I have done a lot considering I am a Swedish citizen. But I can do little alone, to be effective I have also to be part of a mass movement

Would you agree there is a vast diversity of opinion?
-oh, yes, that is a good side of democracy

Before you took the action you did you were unaware of the opinion of the people of Barrow, you had not asked them
- that would have been a good thing to do; but after our action one guy told us he had stopped work at the shipyard when he realised what the submarines were doing in the Falklands war. The people of Barrow have difficulties finding a living but the do not really support Trident.

[brief pause while prosecutor takes in this response, then she speaks to the Judge]

Your honour, I don't think it will help the jury if I ask any more questions.
Judge: No. Thank you miss Nicholls.

[comment: this cross examination was a lot shorter than the Annika's. I think the crown had noticed that the cross examination was giving our side a good chance to make arguments that had been missed in the main evidence.]

[legal note: in English law if the prosecution want to say to the jury or to the judge that they disagree with some part of your evidence, they must put that disagreement to you somehow. This explains a lot of the questions that were asked, and it gives defendants a clue about some of the questions they can expect. For example here the crown seem to want to suggest the defendants were acting dishonestly by saying they were open but really arriving at night. This question had to be asked or the crown could not say so later on. Obviously the answers Annika and Stellan gave were not very useful to the crown, but now the question has been asked the crown are allowed to go on suggesting that they were not being totally open. If you think about what the crown will most likely want to say to the jury, it can help you to think before the trial about how you will answer in a way that helps us, not them.]

[ Comment about both cross examinations. In thinking about these two cross examinations of our people, both Annika and Stellan were very successful and they spoiled what the crown wanted to do. They did it in two very different ways. Annika by the way she was -- her honesty and sincerity was obvious in the whole way she was during the cross examination. In contrast the effect Stellan had was more about the words he said -- almost every point that was put to him he answered with some directly contrary facts, and sometimes brought in totally new stuff that had not been mentioned before, and I think it was because of his sudden mention of the Falklands war that the crown stopped so soon.

It is useful to remember that there is more than one way we can be in court and still be successful. It is also good, in my opinion, that the two witnesses were so different, because some people in the jury are more likely to listen to one approach and some are likely to listen to the other.

And my advice to anyone who might be in court is to go to as many cross examinations as you can - more than any other part of a court case it is where you can learn a lot by watching how other people have done it. Think about what they are saying all the time. What did they do well? What mistakes did they make? Would I be caught by the same trick? Does what they do suit me or would a different approach be more my style?

Being in court is for support of the defendants, but it is also useful preparation for our own trials and if you can only go for one day then maybe the cross-examination is the day to go. This is not totally selfish - Stellan has said to me that it is a great encouragement to him to think that their action is helping other activists to take their own actions.

And that is the real reason I have gone to the effort to type all this up, because I hope it will be useful to at least one future ploughshares defendant when they go to court.]