SSP leader jailed for anti-trident demonstration

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Wednesday August 27, 2003 20:00

by E.G.

Tommy Sheridan, the firebrand leader of the Scottish Socialist party, was sent to jail for seven days yesterday after he refused to pay a fine imposed for his role in an anti-Trident demonstration.
At a court appearance which lasted less than a minute but attracted a full press gallery, Sheridan told the magistrate, Robert Hamilton, that he had no intention of paying a £200 fine imposed for breach of the peace last year.

Sheridan, dressed in jeans and tracksuit top, was then led from the dock at Glasgow district court to begin his sentence at Barlinnie prison.

As he left, his mother, Alice, shouted, "Keep walking in the light son," while his father-in-law raised his fist in a socialist salute from the public gallery.

The magistrate was unimpressed. On his instructions, police officers removed Mr Sheridan's father-in-law from the court and took him into custody. "I am trying to run a court, not a circus," Mr Hamilton said.

Sheridan was arrested at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, the home of the Trident nuclear programme, during a protest in February 2002. He was subsequently fined £200 for breach of the peace last August.

From the outset, Sheridan said he had no intention of paying the fine and he presented himself at Glasgow's Govan police station late on Sunday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He spent the night in cells there.

Speaking outside the court, his mother condemned the sentence. She said: "I have utter contempt for the verdict and I am very proud of what Tommy has done."

But the Scottish Conservatives' chief whip, Bill Aitken, accused Sheridan of wasting taxpayer's money.

"Scotland's police and our criminal justice system are trying hard to cope with the rising tide of violent crime," he said. "So the ego-tripping antics of Tommy Sheridan that waste valuable time and resources are an affront to all honest citizens and an abuse of our police and courts."

Sheridan is no stranger to Scotland's penal institutions.

In December 2000 he was sentenced to 14 days for failing to pay a £250 fine imposed following another anti-Trident demonstration.

In 1992, as one of the leading poll tax campaigners, he spent four months in Edinburgh's Saughton prison for attempting to stop a warrant sale (trying to prevent the enforcement of a debt).

FULL STORY HERE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/aug/26/uk.scotland?INTCMP=SRCH