THERE is still a lot of confusion and misinformation in the public domain regarding the prosecution of the Metric Martyrs.

Steven Thoburn was prosecuted for weighing a pound of bananas on a set of scales that did not bear an official stamp.

The scales were perfectly accurate but the stamp had been removed on a previous visit by a trading standards officer because it is now deemed a criminal offence to use imperial measures for trade.

Steven was threatened with arrest by the two police officers present if he objected.

He was subsequently found guilty, given a six-month conditional discharge and threatened with an order for £55,000 costs if he appealed.

Criminal offence

Steven had metric scales. He has always dual-priced in metric and imperial but it is also deemed to be a criminal offence to give the imperial price prominence.

There are hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers breaking these regulations on a daily basis but only five across the country have found themselves before the courts, and by coincidence they all happen to be small individual traders and not supermarket chains.

This was the selective prosecution of individuals least able to defend themselves against regulations that have been sneaked by stealth past the British public and made criminals out of honest, hard-working shopkeepers and market traders.

The bigger implications are that the judgement will lead to a constitutional crisis as the case has exposed the conflict between the supremacy of UK versus EU law.

NEIL HERRON,

Metric Martyrs Defence Fund

Frederick Street,

Sunderland,

Tyne and Wear.