A church hall in Helensburgh has been used as a court to try peace protesters on 17th, 18th and 19th August. The photo shows one of those who swam up to a Trident submarine being led in handcuffs from a police van to the church hall.
The following account is based on an article in the Lennox Herald:
A church kitchen was converted into a police cell on Monday 17th August during one of the most bizarre court hearings in Scottish legal history. The hall of St Micheal's Episopal Church in Helensburgh was the venue for a special sitting of the town's district court. The session was convened to deal with a group of people arrested over the weekend at an anti-nuclear protest near the naval base at Coulport. The court normally sits in the town's Victoria Halls, but because they are being refurbished [actually an art exhibition], the nearby church was deployed - and the kitchen was the only room available for the police to hold the accused. Equally unorthodox were the scenes in the makeshift public gallery, sited on one half of the badmington court. Minutes before before proceeedings began just three seats were allocated to spectators - but when more than 50 supporters of the accused turned up, police launched a frantic search for more chairs.
ONLOOKERS
Officers found another pile elsewhere in the church - but not enough. And several onlookers were forced to sit on the wooden floor, some of them barefoot. Flouting all normal courtroom rules, punnets of strawberries and packets of crisps were passed freely round the audience as the hearing progressed - while several others sat cross-legged indulging in the art of origami. Among the six people who were sent for trial on a variety of charges including vandalism and breach of the peace, was a 30-year old Swedish priest and two countrymen. The reverend Hans Fredrick Ivarrson, along with Hans Joelson and Klaus Bognier, both 30, denied cutting the wire fence surrounding the base. They were released on bail and ordered to return for trial in March next year.
DENIED
Helen John of Yorkshire, Sylvia Boyce of Birmingham and Angie Zelter of Norfolk also denied a string of public order offences and will be tried in January. Initially Boyce and Zelter were remanded in custody when they refused to accept a condition of bail that ordered them not to go within 25 metres of either Coulport or the submarine base at Faslane. After debate with fiscal Ann McAllister, however, magistrate Tony Stirling JP, withdrew the stipulation. He told the accused "By refusing to accept the condition I would have no alternative but to remand you in custody until your trial. The problem is that no date is available for another hearing within 40 days. When the nature of charges are taken into account, it would be iniquitous to keep you in custordy for that length of time - because it would be longer that the sentence I would have the power to impose should you have pleaded guilty."