Fairford Five

Last updated

The Fairford Five was a group of five British peace protesters (Paul Milling, Margaret Jones, Phil Pritchard, Toby Olditch and Josh Richards) who broke into the RAF Fairford military air base in 2003 and disabled equipment in order to disrupt military operations at the start of the Iraq War. The group was given its name by supporters and by articles in the press reporting on the event and the judicial trials which followed. Two members of the group had previously been members of Trident Ploughshares. The case which followed resulted in the first occurrence of a High Court Judge being called upon to pronounce on the legality of a war.

Contents

Events

On the night of 13 March 2003 the first two protesters (Milling and Jones) breached the perimeter fence of the RAF Fairford base using bolt-cutters, and once inside damaged instrument panels, fuel tankers, support vehicle windscreens - which were needed to supply the B-52 bombers due to fly that day, and cut brake cables on 15 bomb trailers. [1] They used hammers and are also reported to have been carrying grinding-paste to put into fuel tanks. [2] In their commitment to peaceful protest, the two protesters left notices on the damaged vehicles to warn operators and prevent an accident. They were discovered by a US serviceman, did not resist arrest, and were taken to Stroud police station. Their actions delayed the planned missions and caused £10,000 worth of damage.

On the night of 18 March 2003 the two other protesters (Pritchard and Olditch) broke into the base and were arrested at the perimeter fence. They had intended to cause damage to the runway. Richards on the same date had also broken in to the air base and had intended to set fire to a USAF aircraft. [3]

Bombers flew from Fairford to bomb Baghdad on 21 March.

Trial

All five were charged with criminal damage and taken to trial. After some preliminary meetings, [4] their case was heard in Bristol Crown Court by Justice Grigson, with the defence resting on the claim that the war was illegal, making their actions a justifiable attempt to prevent war crimes. [1] The case put pressure on the attorney general Lord Goldsmith to reveal the advice he had given to the government in the lead up to the war. [5]

A guilty verdict was reached at the court in Bristol, but through an appeal to the Royal Court of Justice [3] the defendants were able to obtain a hearing at the British High Court. [6] This caused enough concern at the Foreign Office to lead under-secretary of state Sir Michael Hastings to warn "it would be prejudicial to the national interest and to the conduct of the Government’s foreign policy if the English courts were to express opinions on questions of international law", in a four-page statement which was passed to the court minutes before the hearing was due to start. [7] The appeal was eventually heard alongside two other similar cases, and was sustained, leading to a number of retrials.

Future Labour leader, Keir Starmer was on a team representing one of the appellants. [3]

Convictions

Milling received a conditional discharge and a £250 fine for costs, [1] with Jones receiving a curfew order on 2 August 2007 which lasted until the following January. [2]

Acquittals

Two of the defendants (Olditch, Prichard) The B52 Two were acquitted in May 2007 after the jury accepted their actions were reasonable for trying to prevent war crimes. [1] [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Indymedia</i> Global open publishing network of activist journalist collectives

The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seattle WTO protests, Indymedia became closely associated with the global justice movement. The Indymedia network extended internationally in the early 2000s with volunteer-run centers that shared software and a common format with a newswire and columns. Police raided several centers and seized computer equipment. The centers declined in the 2010s with the waning of the global justice movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada</span> President of Bolivia from 1993 to 1997 and 2002 to 2003

Gonzalo Daniel Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante, often referred to as Goni, is a Bolivian-American businessman and politician who served as the 61st president of Bolivia from 1993 to 1997 and from 2002 to 2003. A member of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), he previously served as minister of planning and coordination under Víctor Paz Estenssoro and succeeded him as the MNR's national chief in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAF Brize Norton</span> Royal Air Force main operating base in Oxfordshire, England

Royal Air Force Brize Norton or RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about 75 mi (121 km) west north-west of London, is the largest station of the Royal Air Force. It is close to the village of Brize Norton, and the towns of Carterton and Witney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAF Fairford</span> Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Royal Air Force Fairford or more simply RAF Fairford is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. While being an RAF station, Fairford hosts United States Air Force personnel. Since 2019, the base has played host to a Lockheed U-2S Dragon Lady detachment from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. It is the USAF's only European airfield for heavy bombers and routinely supports Bomber Task Force (BTF) operations. Its most prominent use in recent years has been as an airfield for United States Air Force B-52s during the 2003 Iraq War, Operation Allied Force in 1999, and the first Gulf War in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairford</span> Market town in Gloucestershire, England

Fairford is a market town in Gloucestershire, England. The town lies in the Cotswold hills on the River Coln, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Cirencester, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Lechlade and 9 miles (14 km) north of Swindon. Nearby are RAF Fairford and the Cotswold Water Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peace camp</span> Form of physical protest camp

Peace camps are a form of physical protest camp that is focused on anti-war and anti-nuclear activity. They are set up outside military bases by members of the peace movement who oppose either the existence of the military bases themselves, the armaments held there, or the politics of those who control the bases. They began in the 1920s and became prominent in 1982 due to the worldwide publicity generated by the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. They were particularly a phenomenon of the United Kingdom in the 1980s where they were associated with sentiment against American imperialism but Peace Camps have existed at other times and places since the 1920s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Haw</span> English protester and peace campaigner (1949–2011)

Brian William Haw was a British protester and peace campaigner who lived for almost ten years in a peace camp in London's Parliament Square from 2001, in a protest against UK and US foreign policy. He began the Parliament Square Peace Campaign before the September 11 attacks, and became a symbol of the anti-war movement over the policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States in Afghanistan and later Iraq. At the 2007 Channel 4 Political Awards he was voted Most Inspiring Political Figure. Haw died of cancer in Berlin, where he had been receiving medical treatment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delwar Hossain Sayeedi</span> Bangladeshi politician and war criminal (1940–2023)

Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was a Bangladeshi Islamist leader, politician, public speaker, and convicted war criminal, who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1 constituency from 1996 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAF Welford</span> Royal Air Force station in Berkshire

Royal Air Force Welford or more simply RAF Welford is an active Royal Air Force station in Berkshire, England. The station is located approximately 6 miles (10 km) northwest of Newbury; about 50 miles (80 km) west of London

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Tracie McBride</span> American murder case

On February 18, 1995, 19-year-old American soldier Tracie Joy McBride was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by 44-year-old American soldier Louis Jones Jr. in Texas. Jones abducted McBride from Goodfellow Air Force Base and raped her at his house before bludgeoning her to death under a highway bridge in Coke County. He had, on another occasion, sexually assaulted his ex-wife Sandra Lane and was arrested on March 1, and the ensuing police investigation found that he was also responsible for raping and murdering McBride. Jones was tried and convicted in the U.S. federal court system for kidnapping resulting in death; his crime was a federal case because it had begun on a military base and because the rape was the prime aspect to the murder, which made it a capital offense. Following his initial denials, Jones eventually confessed that he had raped McBride in addition to murdering her, and was sentenced to death. He subsequently attempted to contest his sentencing on the grounds that he had been suffering from Gulf War syndrome, but his appeals were rejected. On March 18, 2003, the 53-year-old Jones was executed by lethal injection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey Robertson</span> Australian-British lawyer (born 1946)

Geoffrey Ronald Robertson is an Australian-British barrister, academic, author and broadcaster. Robertson is a founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers. He serves as a Master of the Bench at the Middle Temple, a recorder, and visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas Court of Criminal Appeals</span> Highest court in the U.S. state of Texas for criminal matters

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) is the court of last resort for all criminal matters in Texas. The Court, which is based in the Supreme Court Building in Downtown Austin, is composed of a presiding judge and eight judges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Criminal Court investigations</span> Investigations by the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court has opened investigations in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Darfur in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Uganda, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Palestine, the Philippines, and Venezuela. Additionally, the Office of the Prosecutor conducted preliminary examinations in situations in Bolivia, Colombia, Guinea, Iraq / the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Georgia, Honduras, South Korea, Ukraine and Venezuela. Preliminary investigations were closed in Gabon; Honduras; registered vessels of Comoros, Greece, and Cambodia; South Korea; and Colombia on events since 1 July 2002.

EDO MBM Technology Ltd v Campaign to Smash EDO and Others was a High Court of Justice civil action brought by EDO MBM Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of EDO Corporation, against protesters in Brighton, that began in April 2005 and was settled by March 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khmer Rouge Tribunal</span> Cambodian–UN court established in 1997 to try Khmer Rouge leaders

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, commonly known as the Cambodia Tribunal or Khmer Rouge Tribunal (សាលាក្ដីខ្មែរក្រហម), was a court established to try the senior leaders and the most responsible members of the Khmer Rouge for alleged violations of international law and serious crimes perpetrated during the Cambodian genocide. Although it was a national court, it was established as part of an agreement between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations, and its members included both local and foreign judges. It was considered a hybrid court, as the ECCC was created by the government in conjunction with the UN, but remained independent of them, with trials being held in Cambodia using Cambodian and international staff. The Cambodian court invited international participation in order to apply international standards.

R v Saibene and others was an English trial of seven of the "Smash EDO" campaign. On 16–17 January 2009 the activists broke into the armaments factory-office in Moulsecoomb and damaged equipment worth around £200,000. They were cleared by the jury of conspiring to cause and causing criminal damage. The jury accepted their defence that they were acting with lawful excuse by aiming to prevent Israeli war crimes during the 2009 Gaza War.

Hugo Charlton is a practising criminal barrister, international human rights lawyer, environmental activist, broadcaster and commentator. He was Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2003 to 2005. Though he is no longer active in the Green Party, Charlton continues to speak on environmental and human rights issues, in particular on issues concerning climate change and its reduction through the prevention of deforestation, and on the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples. He is also an expert on the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and an advisor on clean technology solutions. He has worked for many years in support of the Kurdish community in the Middle East.

The Prosecutor v. Ratko Mladić was a war crimes trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands, concerning crimes committed during the Bosnian War by Ratko Mladić in his role as a general in the Yugoslav People's Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska.

<i>P.M. v District Judge Miriam Malone and the Director of Public Prosecutions</i> Irish Supreme Court case

P.M. v District Judge Miriam Malone and the Director of Public Prosecutions[2002] IESC 46 is an Irish Supreme Court case in which the court barred the further prosecution of a man for the alleged sexual abuse of his sister due to the nature of the offences and on the grounds of the pre-charge delay in criminal prosecution. A "inordinate" delay of seven years before the man was charged, coupled with the nature of the offences being described as "a form of sexual experimentation between two children under the age of ten" led to the decision of the court.

R v Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Jake Skuse and Sage Willoughby, known as the Colston four, was a British court case surrounding the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, involving four defendants accused of criminal damage in relation to the removal and dumping in the canal of the controversial statue in Bristol in 2020 during a protest.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Norton-Taylor, Richard (6 July 2007). "RAF base saboteurs lose court case". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  2. 1 2 Newman, Andy (18 August 2007). "Margaret Jones Interview". Soacialist Unity. Archived from the original on 9 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. 1 2 3 "Judgments - R v. Jones (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)) (formerly R v. J (Appellant)), Etc". House of Lords. 29 March 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  4. ↑ Jones, Margaret (7 February 2004). "Margaret Jones' Diary". Blogspot. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  5. ↑ Dyer, Clare (27 February 2004). "Trial of Fairford Five will put pressure on Goldsmith". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  6. ↑ "Fairford Five High Court Appeal". Indymedia UK. 1 July 2004. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  7. ↑ "Fairford 5 Newsflash: The State Is Nervous..." 1 July 2004. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  8. ↑ "Court Refuses to Drop Sixth Fairford Case". Bristol Indymedia. Archived from the original on 24 December 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  9. ↑ Addley, Esther; Norton-Taylor, Richard (25 May 2007). "Fairford Two strike blow for anti-war protesters after jury decide they were acting to stop crime". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 17 April 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.