News and other Busyness

BAE Protesters Reluctantly Jailed

Squall 14, Autumn 1996, pg. 06.

Two “particularly nice people” were jailed for a month each in August after raiding a British Aerospace base in support of four women who smashed up Hawks bound for Indonesia.

Richard Smith and David Durham were immediately released after lodging an appeal. The sentence was reluctantly handed down by North Yorkshire magistrate Neville White who described them as “nice people” and pleaded with them to accept an order binding them over to keep the peace.

They were jailed for contempt of court after refusing to accept the order.

The men cut holes in a security fence surrounding BAe’s Brough plant on the Humber Estuary, in support of the four ploughshare’s women who were cleared by a Liverpool court.

Three accomplices, Jen Parker, Tracy Hart and John Lynes - a 68 year old Quaker - were fined £200 and given conditional discharges.

Smith and Durham were found guilty of breaching the peace for trying to break in to the plant.

Magistrate White said: “I have some sympathy for your position. The last thing I want to do is send people like you to jail.”