On 3 April the trial of the Edinburgh 8 ended in a victory with six verdicts of ‘not proven’ and one of ‘not guilty’ – already halfway through the trial one of the 8 had been totally acquitted and another’s charge dropped. The three-day trial was the result of the police arrests at a Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! open street meeting on Saturday 29 November at the mound in Princes Street. The meeting was held in support of the hunger strikers and so enraged Edinburgh police that they made little attempt to dress up their censorship, openly declaring that they wanted the meeting ‘broken up’. Although the charges were designed to look non-political, e.g. obstruction and breach of the peace, the trial itself was obviously political. Under able cross-examination, Police Inspector Campbell was forced to admit that he was ordered by his superiors to ensure that the street meeting did not take place. He obligingly emphasised that he would stop the meeting taking place at any cost.
So due to Inspector Campbell’s statements, and the obvious lies of Sgt Heavy (with a name like that need I say more) and his ‘sincere young men’, the prosecution case lay in shreds exposed as a clumsy attempt at censorship and criminalisation of work in support of the hunger strikers.
This particular attempt was a little too clumsy and the Magistrate was forced not to convict in the face of such obvious police censorship and blatant lying. To do so would have rendered the trial a farce, a consideration necessary in the light of the vigorous and public fight waged by the Edinburgh 8 Defence Campaign. There is no doubt, however, that had the Edinburgh 8 not had the good fortune to have photographs, witnesses to the arrests and a very good lawyer, the outcome would have been different. Arbitrary arrests for so-called breach of the peace etc happen all the time in poorer working class districts of town. Without determination and clearly directed Defence Campaigns there is no chance of defeating the police; imperialist justice being what it is.
Steve Pearce
FRFI 10 May / June 1981
