Archimedes,
Your memory served you better than mine! From The Guardian(31/3/2001):
A high court ruled that Britain's nuclear deterrent is not illegal following the acquittal of three women peace campaigners, in October 1999, of damaging a laboratory at Coulport, part of the Trident nuclear submarine installation at Faslane naval base on the Clyde.
Greenock sheriff Margaret Gimblett accepted the women's argument that nuclear weapons were illegal under international law and that they had a right to commit crimes to prevent their use or deployment. But at the court of session in Edinburgh yesterday, Lords Prosser, Kirkwood and Penrose ruled against her judgment. The acquittal of the three protesters still stands, however.
Angie Zelter, one of the women arrested and later freed after the Coulport incident, said she was disappointed. She was part of a group of peace campaigners who held an all-night vigil out side the court. "Even if the result had been yes, we would still have had to continue with our campaign."
The crown had challenged Sheriff Gimblett's ruling and a reference hearing was held at the high court in Edinburgh last October.
Yesterday Lord Prosser said: "The reference contains four questions for the court. The first raises a question of competency in law and we find in the negative.
"Each of the other three questions raises an issue of substantive law. All of these issues concern different aspects of possible defences to criminal charges on the basis that the act charged might be justified either as a matter of customary international law or as a matter of Scots law necessity.
"We answered each of these three questions in the negative."
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the legality of Trident was never "in the dock".
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