Interview with recently imprisoned activist from DGN/Gluaiseacht Adam Conway

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Wednesday September 22, 2004 20:37 by k - imc éire

Brief interview done last weekend with Adam who spent a couple of days in prison in the UK for refusing to pay a fine.

Adam

Can you just tell us what’s been happening with you in the last few weeks? We heard that you spent a couple of days in prison as a result of one of the actions you participated in at Faslane.

It was from an action three years ago at Colport, which is the sister base to Faslane. During the camp three years ago we did a small blockade. There was about seven or eight of us, at the two gates. I got fined £175, and they've been messing around for a year or so. They were claiming they were transferring the fine to Ireland, which they can’t actually do. Eventually they gave up and sent me to prison. I was only in for a couple of days. It was a one week sentence but you only really serve half of a sentence like that in reality. I got released a day early because they don’t do releases on weekends.

Had you refused to pay the fine?

I'd refused to pay it several times, I'd been over a few times in the past year to try and deal with it. Each time I'd expected to get send to prison. The magistrate on each of those occasions had tried to avoid sending me to prison because she knew it wasn’t going to stop me and it wasn’t going to achieve anything. She tried to give me supervised attendance, which is like community service, but she couldn’t. She tried to transfer the fine to Ireland but she couldn’t because the courts service is in a different jurisdiction, which seemed to escape her notice! There was a different magistrate there this time and he didn’t mess around. I was OK with going to jail; I just wanted to get rid of it at this point.

Why did you refuse to pay the fine in the first place?

I still don’t think I did anything wrong. And although paying the fine is not admitting guilt, it would feel that way. I felt it would be contributing to the system that maintains nuclear weapons, which is what I was trying to oppose in the first place. Also on a practical level I don’t make £175 in two days! It was the most efficient way for me to pay it off, if you see what I mean. It also makes a little extra bit of hassle for the state in dealing with the protests. It does add to the effectiveness of it a bit.

Where were you locked up?

Greenock. It was alright. Dull. 22 hour lockups. There are two of you in the cell with a TV, and you just sit there and vegetate. It was alright.

Did you ever feel when you were in prison that participating in the blockade wasn’t worth it?

No, not at all. That never came into it. I didn’t have a problem with being there. I had been expecting it for over a year, and I had prepared myself to deal with it. I was only in for a couple of days; you'd have to engage with it differently if you were in for longer. I knew I was getting out soon so I just kept my head down for the time and left again. I got to know my cellmate a bit and some other people I arrived in with, because we were hours waiting together in the holding cells, to be searched, seen by the prison nurse, and all the processing. You're locked up for 22 hours so the only person you have the chance to get to know is your cellmate.

What was he in for? Did you tell him why you were there?

Housebreaking. I told him what I was there for. A lot of people guess. You say you're in for not paying fines, you're only there for a short time, then people take one look at you and they say "oh you must be a peace camper." My cellmate didn’t really express much opinion on the peace camp either way. He arrived the same day as me but was going to be in for a lot longer. I think he was surprised to be put in with me because I was only there for a couple of days. I think it wasn’t helpful for him to be sharing with someone who was only there for a short time. It would have been easier for him to get his head around it with someone who was going to be there for longer.

What’s your current situation then? Are you allowed back to the peace camp?

That's it over and done with, for that offence. I got released from prison on the Friday and I was up in court on the following Monday for another one. Last summer, two of us cut into Colport. I got fined £120 for that, so that will work its way through the system at some point. I think they expect me to pay that! I'm not going to. They give you 28 days to pay the fine, so I'm still within that period at the moment.

If you don’t pay this fine, will they send you back to prison again?

I'll have to go back to the magistrate first, but I expect they'll send me back again, at some point.