A statement made by Helen Steven in Dumbarton Sheriff Court in defence of action taken at Faslane on the 4th April 1984.

“I do not wish to deny that on April 4th, the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I was inside the Faslane Submarine Base, and that I was there as a deliberate act. However, I pled not guilty to the charges because had I done otherwise I would have been guilty of far greater crimes against my conscience and against humanity.

My charge is that I entered a protected area without authority or permission. My claim is that I had authority – the authority of my Christian conviction that a gospel of love cannot be defeated by the threatened annihilation of millions of innocent people. It can never be morally right to use these ghastly weapons at any time, whether first, or as unthinkable retaliation after we ourselves are doomed.

I acted with the authority of the nameless millions dying of starvation now because we choose to spend £11.5 billion on Trident whilst a child dies every 15 seconds.

I am charged under an Act giving control and disposal of land to the Queen, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons assembled in Parliament and eventually the Secretary of State. I believe the world to be God’s creation. The beautiful, delicate world in all its infinite wonder is threatened with extinction. That to me is blasphemy.

And so, out of love, I had to act. If I see that base at Faslane as morally wrong and against my deepest convictions – as wrong as the deliberate starvation of children – then by keeping silent I condone what goes on there.

On April 4th, I made a choice. I chose to create the dream of another way. My only crime is not working hard enough, or long enough, or soon enough towards the fulfilment of the dream. If my actions were a crime, then I am guilty.”

(As published in Outside Holiness - The spirituality of Resistance | Fellowship of Reconciliation | ISBN 0 900368 88 8)