Woman cleared of base 'trespass'

Mrs Percy is married with three children and four grandchildren

A peace-campaigning grandmother has been cleared of breaking into an airbase in a protest over the Iraq war.

Lindis Percy, 62, from Hull, was found not guilty of aggravated trespass at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in March 2003.

Cirencester Magistrates Court heard she had spent four hours there, fixing an upside down American flag to a plane.

But District Judge Paul Clark ruled there was not enough evidence that she intended to disrupt security.

He said there was "no doubt" Ms Percy had entered the base as a trespasser by climbing over the 8ft barbed wire fence.

'Personal protest'

Ms Percy, of Bellfield Avenue, Hull, told the court how she had gone into RAF Fairford, where American B-52 bombers were based, to protest peacefully against the war.

She said the "personal" protest was meant to say that the war was not in her name.

"If I wanted to obstruct or disrupt the workings of the base I would have run round the place and shouted and probably raged about what was being planned but I didn't."

Ms Percy once sparked a massive security alert when she scaled the gates of Buckingham Palace ahead of a state visit by US President George Bush.

The veteran peace campaigner is joint co-ordinator of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases.