Nuclear weapons crime in the UK has been reported to Thames Valley Police.
Brief report by Angie Zelter on reporting the criminal conspiracies connected to Trident in the dock at Devonport, Plymouth on Monday 12th May.
Around 25 people gathered to put up banners outside the Charles Cross Police station in Plymouth. The local Trident Ploughshares affinity group called The Tamarians, were there, with Action AWE, to report the crime of Trident.
This is a police station very familiar to many of us as crime preventing activists have been held there after actions at the
Devonport Naval base where we are ‘processed’ for the ‘crime’ of trying to stop the dirty re-fueling of the Trident submarines that are causing many radiation leaks in the densely populated city. It took 2 hours for 18 people to go and report the serious crimes of Trident.
Three police officers dealt with the reports very quickly at the front desk but were not willing to take down many details or any ‘evidence’. We did not give our telephone or email details and insisted that they write to us to let us know of their process and what they would do with our reports. We were all given the same crime number – 788.
I talked to the senior officer present who was not sure how to deal with this rather ‘unusual’ crime report, whether to send it to the Ministry of Defence or the Naval authorities to deal with. I said that he should deal with it as he deals with other crime reports – investigate it impartially and seriously and certainly not ask for advice from the alleged perpetrators of the crime!
Later he said he would be contacting the Thames Valley Police to see how they were dealing with it. The people behind the police front desk, took down our details and said that they would contact us and ask for more evidence at a later stage. It
will be interesting to find out how they deal with serious crimes being committed by government officials, Navy personnel and employees of Babcock.
Whilst the reporting went on inside the police station, there were musicians playing outside as the activists gave out leeks and leaflets. The leaflets explained about the increasing numbers of radioactive leaks and the lack of workable evacuation plans and also had a recipe for leek soup on the back. There was a surprising amount of support expressed for our action in this very historic naval city.
