Nuclear warhead convoy stopped in Stirling, Scotland: 6 arrests

Sept 13 2004;

The Nukewatch phone tree was triggered. There was a sighting of a Nuclear Weapons convoy travelling north from Burghfield.

September 14 2004:

Britain owns 200 nuclear warheads each 8 times stronger than the one that exploded above Hiroshima. The nukes are stored and handled in Coulport in Scotland. These scary nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction are of a delicate design and they need to be checked regularly. That's why the nuclear warhead convoys are a regular feature on the English and Scottish roads.

The nukes are maintained in Burghfield in the south of England. Why the MoD chose to build the home in the north and the maintenance facilities in the south and so far apart remains a mystery to me. But the long distance between those locations means that it takes the convoys 2 or 3 days to make a single trip. The lorries that carry them are also so large and heavy that they can only take certain routes and can only stay at certain -overnight stop- places. The fact that the convoy is so predictable makes it not really hard to spot them by our network (or any one else for that matter)

Let it be no surprise then that we managed to intervene with the transport once again!: SCND hired a minibus and we drove to Stirling to intercept the convoy there. Regretfully the MoD police spotted us and sent Stirling police our way to guard us and prevent us from stopping the convoy. That is where the police harassment started. Police officers outnumbered us by two to one and followed us everywhere we went.

In my case, there were two police officers who positioned themselves between me and the road. One of them took the pose of a goal keeper who was about to receive a penalty shot. All I could do was play a bit with him to test his reflexes. I assure you that was very funny. (grin) What was less funny was that Roz was prevented in her human rights to roam, she was physically restrained by a policewoman to go where ever she wanted to go and to safely cross the road. Even when there was no traffic and no sighting of the convoy yet! Regretfully we had to let the convoy pass by unhindered.

So we got back into the van and bypassed the convoy at a lay-by a bit further where it had parked. On the same spot as usual. Very predicable breaks they have!. We pulled over to let some people who wanted to go home get into another vehicle before we drove further to Balloch. At least that was the intention. The police thought different, they decided to block our path with their own vehicles and harassed us with a very thorough illegal vehicle search, further illegally and in one case physically restraining our freedom to roam, following us everywhere we went. They obviously were not going to let us get anywhere until the convoy passed. Boy did they underestimate us all!

All they did was to choose the location of the action for us. When the convoy passed by, we managed to evade the outnumbering police numbers and Roz, Seinaid, Beth and Ludd managed to get on the road in the path of the last truck and Phill managed to climb on the roof of the truck. Thus breaking up the convoy and bringing it to a standstill for a half hour!

Crap arrest goes to Tony. He was arrested for pretending to want to go into the road and clapping his hands while cheering us on and his arrest brought to total number of arrests to 6. Roz was released after a few hours, Tony's and Beth's charges were dropped minutes before their court appearance the next afternoon. Seonaid, Phill and Ludd are all told to come back to Court in January next year.

We are charged with "Breach of the Peace". But pleaded "Not Guilty". Oh Irony! We are trying to prevent millions of people being incinerated on the spot in a possible full scale nuclear war or accident and we are accused of Breach Of the Peace! It should be the other way around! We could do with more people to help us stop the convoys.

Although welcome and encouraged, it is not necessary to be arrestable! We also need people to witness and cheer, take pictures, hand out leaflets, do press and indymedia-work and look after our stuff, make food and prison support etc,...

Feel free to contact us for more information! info@scotland.motherearth.org Beth, Tony, Roz are with Faslane Peace Camp Phill and Seonaid with Scottish CND Ludd with For Mother Earth Scotland. Supporters were also from Stirling CND

September 2004