Quaker fined for peaceful protest
Sylvia Boyes convicted of obstructing a public highway
A seventy-year-old Quaker from West Yorkshire has refused to pay a fine given to her for participating in a peaceful protest at an arms fair in London in September 2013.
Sylvia Boyes was convicted at Stratford Magistrates’ Court in London of obstructing a public highway and told to pay £100 plus £340 costs. District judge Paul Goldspring decided to deduct the money from her state pension rather than send her to prison.
She was one of many peaceful protesters who were arrested at the Defence and Security Equipment international (DSEi) fair in east London. Charges against a number of the protesters, who included some Quakers, were dropped. She is the first person to be fined.
Sylvia Boyes told the court that she was making a stand against government policy directly by trying to prevent the passage of arms and representatives of arms companies along the highway.
The judge said that he could not give a conditional discharge because Boyes had twenty-eight previous convictions, for forty-four offences. These dated back to 1986. All were for peaceful protests against nuclear weapons and the arms trade (see page ‘I could do no other’).
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