Trident protest trial due
Jumped in front of convoy
A veteran antiTrident activist who jumped under a lorry carrying nuclear weapons through Stirling is to appear at court next month.
Pensioner Brian Quail (78) spoke to the Observer shortly after he lay down in front of a 20-vehicle convoy, thought to be taking weapons to Faslane, in September.
The incident, which also saw a 21-year-old student get involved in the protest, happened on the A84 at the junction of Back O’ Hill Road and Millennium Way, Raploch.
Both men said they were members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Afterwards Quail said: “We were both arrested and taken to Falkirk but the police were exemplary in the way they dealt with it. They were highly professional.”
The retired teacher was last week cleared of breaching the peace in relation to a similar protest in Balloch in March of last year.
On that occasion he lay on the A811 at a pelican crossing next to the national park headquarters and stopped a line of police vehicles and trucks that were believed to be carrying nuclear weapons.
John Ainslie, coordinator of Scottish CND, filmed the hold-up and claimed the convoy was made up of “four trucks carrying either one or two nuclear bombs in each”.
Quail, who pleaded not guilty, defended himself at Dumbarton Justice of the Peace Court and gave a 40-minute speech insisting he was “upholding humanitarian law”.
Justice of the Peace Andrew Nicholson said: “I have taken advice from my legal advisor as to what constitutes a breach of the peace.
“It needs to be severe enough to cause fear or alarm to ordinary people, not mere irritation. My decision is based 100 per cent on the law of Scotland and nothing else.
“Having reviewed the evidence presented in court, I find you not guilty.”
After the trial Quail pledged to continue campaigning but said: “I am relieved but concerned that courts still refuse to address the monstrous illegality of weapons of mass destruction being trundled along our roads.”
Quail’s trial at Stirling Sheriff Court is set to begin on Monday, March 13.