This article was published in This England, a magazine that has been campaigning against the EU and the metric system for years,
Han Weighing in with a Silver Cross for the battling Metric Martyr The trader branded a criminal for selling what has been described as the most famous bunch of bananas in English legal history will stand before one of the highest courts in the land this winter to plead for common sense and justice. Greengrocer Steve Thoburn, dubbed the "Metric Martyr", became the first person in Britain to be convicted for failing to sell loose goods by metric weight, as is now demanded by European law. He was prosecuted by the absurd Sunderland City Council in County Durham after the council, totally lacking any perception of common sense or reason, resolved to make an example of him by bringing a test case. Thus the full might of Brussels, invoked by an English local authority and wielded by senior counsel funded with taxpayers' money, was brought to bear upon a hard-grafting shopkeeper and stallholder who has to work 100 hours a week to make a decent living. After an opening hearing the case went before a judge, who in April found him guilty of selling bananas by the pound and conditionally discharged him. The judge said it was clear the Parliament had "surrendered it sovereignty to the primacy of European law" when Britain joined the EEC in 1972, and ruled that European metric weights and measures took precedence over Britain's historic imperial system. It was a decision that Steve, who hates fuss but places high value on his principles found intolerable. With a huge body of public opinion behind him, as well as the powerful financial and legal backing of the British Weights and Measures Association, he is prepared to challenge to the utmost the legitimacy of decrees that seek to outlaw the use of Britain's ancient and traditional weights and measures. This winter he will appeal against his conviction before the Divisional Court in London and, if that fails, will go all the way to the House of Lords, the ultimate forum in the land. Vivian Linacre, Director of the Association, declares: "if the Divisional Court appeal fails, as a last resort we shall then go to the House of Lords, because from the very start this has been recognised by all parties as an important test case, and one that is founded upon a fundamental constitutional issue. "Since the Sunderland case some gung-ho councils have succeeded in similar proceedings of their own. But we won't let them get away with it, either. All those actions that are decided against any other defendants will be consolidated in what will, in effect, ne an omnibus Thoburn appeal." It is worth recalling the sorry background to the criminalisation of an honest family man who works a punishing 17-hour day six days a week, rising at 2.30am to drive 12 miles to the wholesalers, serving at his shop or stall until six, then returning home to do paperwork in a grinding schedule that has seen him and his family enjoy only two weeks' holiday in the last 12 years. In January 2000 the process of introducing compulsory metrication into Britain in accordance with Brussels edict, first begun in 1995, was completed with the application of the regulations to fresh produce and loose goods. The responsibility for ensuring traders obeyed a diktat that made it an offence punishable by heavy fine or imprisonment to sell fruit, vegetables and other unpackaged items in customary weights and measures fell to local authorities. Though the legislation was derisivel ignored throughout the land, councils were understandably nervous of launching actions that would hold them up to ridicule and contempt. With one shameful exception. In July last year Sunderland City Council, anxious to join the EU book-lickers' club, despatched an undercover trading standards officer - posing as an ordinary housewife - to the greengrocer's owned by Steven Thoburn in the city's Southwick district. She asked for some bananas. Cheerfully telling her they cost 25p per pound, he placed them on his usual imperial scales and weighed them out. A few weeks later he was stunned when two trading standards officers, accompanied by a pair of policemen, arrived to order that he hand over not his bananas but his scales. He was then informed that the authority was preparing to prosecute him for failing to price his produce by the kilo and thereby committing a criminal breach of legislation. The news was greeted with universal outrage. An appeal to help him take on the potent legal team the council was assembling quickly brought in thousands of pounds and drew the backing of such celebrities as astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, ex-England cricketer Ian Botham, singer Max Bygraves, and best-selling novelists Jilly Cooper and J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter. But when the April trial went against him, the prosecution warned Steve that if he appealed and failed the council would demand that he foot their estimated �75,000 legal bill for bringing the initial case. It was blackmail, in effect threatening that if he continued to oppose them he would risk losing his home, his business and all for which he had ever worked. A reluctant rebel, Steve did not want the dispute to drag on. Nor did his wife, Leigh, who urged him to back down for the sake of his family - there are two young children, a girl and a boy - and his damaged health. But he was overwhelmed by the volume of public support - moral and financial - that had begun to gain impetus from the moment the council decided to employ the full force of the law to crush a solitary trader for violating an EU diktat. The morning after the judgement he was back on his market stall and customers - he reckons he knows 90 per cent of them by name - queued up to hug him and slap him on the back and shake his hand and say "Thanks for standing up for us", in a display if affection and admiration that brought a lump to his throat. Constantly at his side has been his close friend and fellow market trader Neil Herron, who has stood staunchly by him from the start, organising fundraising and offering help and encouragement. Like his pal, Neil was bolstered by the thousands of supportive letters, 'phone calls and donations that have flooded in from all over Britain and from overseas. Steve insists his crusade is not about politics, nor it is to do with being anti-Europe. It is simply about liberty. "I didn't set out to be a figurehead or a celebrity", he says. "I still believe all I was doing was standing up for the basic right to keep our own laws, customs and way of life." "At the same time I was standing up for my customers. If they wanted me to sell fruit and veg in kilos, I'd do it. In my world, what the customer wants is what the customer gets." Behing the gallant greengrocer are millions of ordinary people who think in terms not of kilos and grams but of pounds and ounces, and who want to know exactly what business it is of anyone to say they can't. Courtesy of This England magazine Autumn, 2001
