(725) PEACE-LOVING ‘GRAFITTI GRANNIES’ OFF TO CORNTON VALE
Veteran anti-nuclear campaigners Georgina Smith (77) and Helen John (69) were sentenced to 45 and 40 days’ imprisonment at Cornton Vale Prison on 9 January 2008, having been found guilty of malicious damage to the High Court of Justiciary building in the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh (the former Sheriff Court building). The women had daubed a series of slogans publicising their political message along the building’s frontage, causing damage worth ₤3,600. The offences took place in the autumn of 2006. Sheriff Richard Macfarlane pronounced the jail sentence after Smith and John had refused to pay compensation for the damage caused. John, who has already featured in the Scottish law reports with unsuccessful arguments that nuclear weapons are contrary to international law and so illegal in Scotland (see John v Donnelly 1999 JC 336, and see also Nos 68 and 104), said: I have a great respect for law and that is why I do what I do