Anti-war protester's 'reality cheque'

An anti-war campaigner has come up with an unorthodox way of paying a civil disobedience fine.
On Friday, Nick Buxton, 31, will hand a court a cheque for £120 - written on a gravestone.

Engraved on the other side of the stone will be a memorial to those who have died in the war in Iraq.

The charity worker was fined, along with at least 50 other protesters, for trying to blockade Northwood military base in north London in January.

"I took direct action at Northwood because I felt the war was illegal and immoral but the government was not listening to demonstrators," he told BBC News Online.

'Graphic'

"This war has had a devastating impact on Iraq - primarily in terms of loss of life in Iraq.

"By paying my fine like this, I wanted to bring the reality home to the public, the courts, and the staff at the bank where the cheque will be cashed - and in quite a graphic way."

It suggested that any legal object can be used as a cheque, provided the account number, date, payee, amount payable and signature are clearly visible.


Nick Buxton's bank said it could not say whether it would agree to make the payment on his behalf without being able to scrutinise the details of the cheque and his account.

But it did say there have been precedents for such unusual payment methods.

"We had several instances of payment like this during the era of the poll tax - people paying on paving slabs, and so on," said a Co-operative Bank spokesman.

"My understanding is that legally we had to accept that."

The Guinness Book of Records says the strangest known cheque was written on the side of a live cow.

Nick Buxton will present the cheque to Camberwell Magistrates Court in London on Friday at 0930 BST.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3159242.stm