KPC April trip to Faslane

March 7th Update from the organisers  

6^th March 2007 UPDATE FOR ALL BLOCKADING GROUPS

We are now into our 6^th month of blockading. We have had 59 Blockading Groups covering 83 days of presence. With thousands having taken part now there have been 576 arrests resulting in only 22 prosecutions so far (see Legal Update below). It has been an empowering experience for people with many first time arrests and with lots of groups tackling the organisational and support work with dedication and thus building up useful skills for sustainable civil resistance.

We have another 40 groups booked into the Rota but July and September are very empty at the moment and we have no firm bookings for August although a Japanese group will probably be coming over from Nagasaki at the beginning of August – they have yet to give us a firm date. So please book more dates as and when you can. Keeping up this people power resistance is going to be crucial in the coming months – whichever way the vote in Westminster goes. We cannot afford to relax until our present nuclear weapon system is dismantled.

P.A.System

We have a basic p.a. system with 2 small box speakers and a basic amp which can have 2 microphones plugged into it or a microphone and CD player. It can also be wired to play mp3/ipod via a cd player. We also have a small petrol driven generator to power it if required. Please contact BEN TALLENTS at faslane365-pa@hotmail.co.uk with as much notice as possible. If you want to use this system.

Trainers

Anna-Linnea is pleased to announce that we are going to have facilitators from Seeds For Change Lancaster running an NVDA training for trainers over the weekend 28-29 April 2007 in a Glasgow venue, with possibly an action at a nearby establishment the day afterwards. This depends on how folk are feeling after a weekend of concentration but would be a good opportunity to get a first hand experience of all the stuff we are talking about in the training sessions and also, another spanner in the works for the MoD.

A more detailed agenda will be circulated and available on the website soon, but please start spreading the word already now to all those people who have expressed an interest in facilitation during your workshops or people you think might want to join us. This training for trainers will be looking at Faslane 365 specifically but will include lots of stuff which is applicable to general NVDA as well. For more info contact Anna-Linnéa on training@faslane365.org or 07788-503761.

Dialogue with Police

Police have reported that some of the concrete lock-ons have had old saw blades embedded in them and that these fracture when being cut through and that a policeman was slightly hurt the other week from the flying pieces. They quite understand our desire to build and experiment with lock-ons that are difficult to get through but wanted us to pass on this information in the hopes that we would only use materials that will not cause damage to the people cutting through them to release us. He also indicated that they would consider more serious charges if saw blades were used in lock-ons in that way again. Regardless of the threat of more serious charges, we feel that this is a reasonable request and in accordance with our guidelines, and that we should try and use other materials.

Inspector Kenny Boyter has moved on to become a Chief Inspector at Campbeltown. He has always been a professional and fair police officer with whom we have been able to liaise in a responsible and helpful manner over many years. We wish him well in his new posting. The officer replacing him is Inspector Gavin Bone. We have met with him once and he seems also to be willing to keep on the constructive dialogue to enable us all to keep the policing and acts of civil resistance against weapons of mass murder as nonviolent and peaceful as we all want it to be. If any groups wish to engage in any personal and direct police liaison work for their blockading group he can be contacted on 01436-633633 or at Gavin.Bone@strathclyde.pnn.police.uk

Legal Update

We have now had 576 arrests for blockading Faslane with 22 of these people facing prosecution. While this is still a very small proportion, it has crept up slightly recently and people are asking why these people were prosecuted.

Some of the prosecutions are down to very specific circumstances. The Captain of the Greenpeace ship for example! Or someone who (allegedly) was planning to blockade with a van with a lock-on attached for the second time in a week. Two people from the Peace Camp are being prosecuted for blocking the main road with concrete barrels ― described by the police as “a barricade not a blockade”.

You also increase your chance of being taken to court if you personally are arrested for blockading often enough. It seems that the third or fourth time provokes a prosecution. Someone arrested seven times has court cases from the fourth arrest on…….and counting!

There was one group, from Coventry, where all 12 people arrested were released from the police office with citations (the start of a prosecution) instead of warning letters. We have delayed sending out this update to see what happened with the next groups to see if this was a new pattern or not. Since then there have been a couple of prosecutions from the Pensioners block but they had all blockaded a couple of times already and were likely to be prosecuted anyway. The two arrests of Diana and Nick’s block were released early the next morning with no paperwork while the 10 arrests in the Quaker block were released with the usual warning letters. As such, it doesn’t look like a policy of prosecuting everyone. It’s possible that Coventry was a one-off or that it will be less predictable in future, with some groups getting prosecuted and others not, but the warning letters still seem to be widely used.

For anyone who is being prosecuted we have recently added more information to the Legal section of the website about the process and procedure and what it all means. You should get support from your Blockading Group and the Legal Working Group are happy to answer questions. Also, you get all sorts of opportunities for further awareness raising and media work!

If anything changes we will let you know. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE LEGAL SUPPORT TEAM IN YOUR BLOCKADING GROUP CONTACTS THE LEGAL WORKING GROUP AT LEAST A WEEK BEFORE YOU COME UP. If there is any new information we will pass it on to the group through your Legal Team ― it really helps if we have the on-the-day contact numbers for your Legal Team as well if anything comes up at the last minute. If your Legal Support Team has any questions or concerns we can usually help.

Finally, we thought it would be helpful to summarise what the options are for what can happen on release:

Release You From the Police Office With a Warning Letter

This is what has happened to the vast majority of people arrested so far in Faslane 365. The warning letter is from the Procurator Fiscal (PF ― the prosecutor in Scotland) and says he could prosecute you but won’t this time.

Release You From the Police Office With a Citation

A citation is the first step in a prosecution. It sets out what the charge against you is and has a form you can fill in and post back to plead (Not Guilty or Guilty).

Release You From the Police Office With Nothing

You could simply be released and told you will be written to by the PF. You may then receive a warning letter or a citation (or a fixed penalty notice) by post.

Release You From the Police Office With a Fixed Penalty Notice

This is a bit like a speeding ticket in that it’s a fine which, if you pay it, does not lead to a criminal record. If you don’t pay then they will usually send you a citation and prosecute in the usual way. This has only been used for one person so far in Faslane 365.

Ask You to Sign an Undertaking Before Releasing You

This is where the police give you a document to sign before releasing you in which you agree to come back to court on a specified day. Once you have signed it, it becomes an extra offence not to come to court that day. However, you are perfectly entitled to refuse to sign it. The police must still either release you or take you to court on the next working day following the arrest. If you have already been held overnight (to a working day) and are asked to sign an undertaking to an inconvenient date then your best approach is probably to refuse to sign. The police will then either let you go, hold you another couple of hours while they get a citation sent over to give you (this is what has happened with the only person to do this so far) or take you to court that day.

Take You to Court

They can take you to court while still in custody. The court would usually then release you on bail (bail does not involve money in Scotland but does involve conditions ― turning up to court and not committing offences whilst on bail are standard conditions and they could add special conditions such as not to go near Faslane).