DO you remember Swampy, the anti-road protester who tunnelled his way into the nation's conscience last year?

For a couple of weeks the mud-encrusted eco warrior became a cause clM- bre and even the hardest nosed motorists tacitly acknowledged the principles he was defending.

After costing the frustrated road builders a small fortune he eventually appeared before magistrates on a minor charge and was sent on his way.

What has gone largely unnoticed is the fact that the editor of the magazine Swampy probably had rolled up in his back pocket has just been sent to prison for three years.

Stephen Booth's crime is to encourage Swampy and his ilk to do what they did.

The mild mannered idealist from Lancaster (described in court as looking more like a stamp collector than a revolutionary anarchist) was jailed for 'conspiracy to incite others to commit criminal damage.' Anyone who has sat for any length of time in a magistrates court knows that criminal damage cases hardly raise an eyebrow and usually result in an order to pay a fine plus costs.

What is alarming is a three year prison sentence for someone who has never actually committed criminal damage but wrote articles in an amateurish magazine encouraging Swampy types to stick a spanner in the works of giant bulldozers. Jailing the editor of an underground revolutionary rag is the stuff of totalitarian regimes!

When the authorities start to point the finger at individuals and utter charges of 'conspiracy' and 'incitement' we move into shadowy ground.

Stephen Booth has effectively been jailed for his words and ideas and three years in prison is no slap on the wrist.

What is more frightening is the fact that the three year police investigation to jail the vegetarian, philosophy graduate cost hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.

Police manpower (they continually tell us) is stretched to the limit yet they can spend three years and buckets of cash to secure this particular conviction.

Why? And why three years when people convicted for violent or sexual crimes get less?

Stephen Booth's supporters believe it was politically motivated (these 'weirdos' cost big business a fortune in lost work time and security) and it could be viewed as a warning to the direct protest movement.

By saying an unambiguous 'no' to the relentless destruction of the natural environment Stephen Booth is now behind bars.

Others who may have joined him in his protest may now think again.

And, because of this, there are some people who will believe this particular prosecution was well worth the time, money and effort.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.