In a sickening and shameful spectacle of bully-boy tactics, BNFL last night turned Barrow docklands and surrounding areas into a militarised zone. Focus of attention was the ship Pacific Teal, itself armed with naval canon and patrolled by UKAEA security guards carrying sub-machine guns and dressed in full combat gear. Due to sail empty for Cherbourg where she would pick up her plutonium fuel cargo of MOX assemblies, the Teal was protected inside and outside the BNFL Ramsden Dock Terminal by police forces from as far afield as Humberside, Lothian and the Borders, and Special Services with an array of inflatable craft that swamped the docks and the Walney Channel. Forced to miss the tide by the MV Greenpeace and activists in inflatables, the Teal remains confined to Barrow where her sister ship Pacific Pintail received her cargo of two transport flasks of MOX fabricated at Sellafield just hours after the Teal’s aborted attempt to sail for France. The MOX transport from Sellafield, on the public rail network, was itself accompanied by a helicopter and carriages containing armed UKAEA police and railwaymen as it travelled into the Docks system. It had been preceeded by an earlier transport of armed guards to ‘test the track’. A CORE spokesperson said today “ The BNFL plutonium pantomime hit town last night, yet despite their show of strength, the clowns were unable to move even an empty ship. This has been a costly and unprecedented strong-arm operation, and BNFL’s failure will have been noted with dismay by customers in Japan . All credit to Greenpeace for showing up BNFL as a small and discredited company trying to ply its dangerous plutonium trade – and failing “. For further information contact 01229 833851 or mobile 0789 999 1146.