When Matt Lygate came up for sentence in March 1972 having been found guilty of armed bank robbery he never really stood a chance. He was going to get clobbered and his political conviction plus protestations of innocence on the main charge were not going to help him. For a start the political group to which he had devoted so much energy and loyalty, the Workers' Party of Scotland, promptly disowned him. Not that this really made much difference. What Matt Lygate really needed was a bit of political muscle flexed on his own behalf, the concerted, sympathetic protest of the broad Scottish left. His chances of that in the prevailing climate of 1972 were virtually nil. Almost without exception we let Lygate go down with hardly a stutter in his defence. In part he was a victim of his own political isolation: advocacy of Stalin, Mao and Enver Hoxha of Albania was hardly the sort of stance that would evoke much sympathy from the CPGB on the one hand or from IS, IMG and the then SLL on the other. Nor could his championing of the Scottish cause and his unstinting work for the John Maclean Society guarantee any sympathy from a national movement which had already accepted the SNP's dis­owning of the 1320 Club because of its taint of extremism. Even unaligned liberals and would-be campaigners on civil liberties, fair-play in the legal system and all, that must have winced into silence when Lygate spoke loudly in court of his connection with Saor Eire and 'men of violence' across the water on the very day that six civilians died and well over a hundred were injured in another bomb carnage in Belfast city centre. There was thus no problem for Lord Dunpark when he made Scottish legal history by handing down the longest sentence ever inflicted in Scotland (32 years for MacPherson) and a massive total of 81 years imprisonment.

The Lygate case is a complicated one. To begin with Matt Lygate did not act alone and there has been endless debates as to the political convictions of the other defendants which has carried on to this day, notably in the letter page of the 'Glasgow News.' But of Lygate's political sincerity there can be no doubt. It is his political wisdom in involving himself in the business of armed bank robberies with men whose political motivations were to say the least tenuous that is to be doubted. Yet even if we somewhat self-righteously condemn Matt Lygate's lack of judgement no one on the Left should be under any doubt that Matt Lygate is incarcerated in Peterhead Gaol with a long 21 years to do primarily because of his politics.

If the general pattern of sentences for comparable charges over the last two years is studied then the unavoidable conclusion is that Matt Lygate got six years for robbery and eighteen for being a Maoist. No matter the protestations of the judge, the Scottish press at the time was well aware of the relevance of politics to the trial. There was not a single report that failed to stir up the old 'red menace.' One of the most pointed contradictions was the sentence meeted out at a later date to another of the men involved, Alec Watt of the WPS who returned from Europe where he had fled as a new-won convert to evangelical Christianity; a duly impressed judge promptly gave him a modest three years.

There are other aspects of the case apart from the sentences that merit investigation. There is the question of evidence. Lygate was convicted of participating in the Kidraston Street robbery, a charge which he still strenuously denies, on the evidence of a man who claimed to have recognised him on a fleeting glimpse over a distance of twenty yards and through a cheese-cloth mask. On this issue and others like it, Matt Lygate's father and others who would like the case reopened would like to prepare a case. Unfortunately for them, and inexcuseably in an avowedly demo­cratic society, the vital trial transcript is denied them unless they can raise a sum in excess of £1000. John Lygate, Matt's father, still hopes that something can be done.

In the meantime Matt Lygate remains a Category A prisoner in Peterhead, a categorisation which his father regards as further evidence of the vindictiveness of the authorities. Whether Matt Lygate and his case lapses into oblivion would seem to depend in very large measure on the response of those outside.

SPEECH FROM THE DOCK

MATTHEW LYGATE: My Lord, I would like to say a few words in plea of mitigation on my own behalf. I would like to say in the charges that have been brought before me in this Court I have been charged with bank robbery, I have been charged with violent activities. I would like to state that in my life, as the Advocate Depute has stated, I have no criminal convictions what­soever. What has brought me along the path into this Court has been in actual fact violence — the violence which I opposed and have constantly opposed in this country, the violence which throws 150,000 men un­employed in the country, the violence which throws 1,000 children per year into Belvidere Hospital through bad housing conditions, the violence which has inflicted on the children of this country again rickets, as stated by Dr. Naismith recently, that rickets have reappeared in the children in this country, because milk has been taken from the children in this country, and this is violence . . .

LORD DUNPARK: Mr Lygate, this has   not   relevance   at   all   to   the sentence I'll pass upon you.

LORD DUNPARK: Mr Lygate, I'll give you two more minutes to say something relevant.

MATTHEW LYGATE: I am trying my best to say what is relevant here. What I am saying is relevant to the working class . .

LORD DUNPARK: Well, it isn't relevant to me, and it is me you are addressing at the moment. It is only me who has any power over you now.

MATTHEW LYGATE: Yes, I see that.

LORD DUNPARK: 60 seconds

MATTHEW LYGATE: Right. I am nearly finished now. I would like to say that in the future a day will come when the roles of this Court will be reversed, when the workers will sit on the bench and those people who have judged me now well be judged then.

LORD DUNPARK: I don't look forward to those days with any longing, I must say. Now I am going to address myself first of all to William ... I beg your pardon, Mr Abbey.

PRISON LETTERS

"There are a lot of good lads in here and although a good deal of them have little, if any, social consciousness they are thoroughly anti-establishment and have a good proletarian under­standing. There is a sense of understanding amongst them which could be well emulated on many a shop floor."

Barlinnie, 1972

"I've always believed that a good many of these young working class lads from the large estates like Drumchapel could be won over to Marxist or socialist ideas if sufficient work was done in these areas. Too many so-called Marxists or socialists are too eager to cast them aside, marked criminal and lumpen. I think fear of the masses is the trouble here." Barlinnie, 1972

A discussion of Matt Lygate's case

recently appeared in Glasgow News

Nos. 76-78.

Glasgow News, Glasgow News People

Ltd., 73 Robertson St., Glasgow.

041-204-0225.