A pensioner who cut fences to break into a nuclear
weapons base has said she would rather go to jail than pay
compensation.
Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Marlene Yeo told Loughborough
Magistrates' Court yesterday she will never pay the £291 she was
ordered to hand over to the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment
in Berkshire at an earlier hearing.
Magistrates issued a distress warrant for bailiffs to take
property amounting to £291 from her home in Burton-on-the-Wolds,
near Loughborough, but Mrs Yeo, 69, said they wouldn't be allowed
in.
Mrs Yeo and three other activists from the Trident Ploughshares
2000 group were convicted of criminal damage following a trial.
They broke into the Aldermaston base - in which they claim nuclear
warheads for British Trident submarines are made - at night in July
last year after cutting through a fence.
Mrs Yeo said: "It is a matter of principle. I have good and
convincing reasons for not paying."
Following the initial trial Mrs Yeo has paid £250 court costs,
but none of the protesters were fined.
