Metric martyrdom
A Sunderland greengrocer goes to court today to fight a landmark case for the right to use imperial measures. Richard Morrison reports www.TheTimes.co.uk

It is hard to imagine Sunderland Magistrates' Court ever being mentioned in the same breath as Magna Carta, the Blitz or the vanquishing of the Spanish Armada. But believe me, in some quarters it already is. For at 2pm today, a local greengrocer will be called into that mundane courtroom to answer the charge that he has contravened Section 11 (2) of the 1985 Weights and Measures Act.

And if you wonder what on earth this apparently trivial tussle among the tomatoes has to do with famous defences of our cherished national freedoms, you clearly haven't been paying attention to Angela Browning, the Shadow Leader of the House. She has called the prosecution "outrageous" and pledged that the Tories would make such a thing impossible if they came to power.

Nor have you been reading The Sun, which has turned the greengrocer in question, 36-year-old Steven Thoburn, into the unlikely hero of its latest anti Europe campaign, ebulliently called "Save Our Scales". And you certainly haven't been keeping up with the excitable website of the UK Independence Party, whose leaders proclaim that what happens in Sunderland today, and subsequently in the higher courts, is all about preserving "a freedom of choice that British people have enjoyed for three centuries".

By now you will have realised that Thoburn is no ordinary greengrocer. He is "The Metric Martyr". He is an industry. You can buy Metric Martyr T-shirts, contribute to the Metric Martyr Defence Fund, and sign a "Support the Metric
Martyr" petition. Thousands have already done so.

So what is a metric martyr? Well, Thoburn is the first British trader to be prosecuted under the new metric regulations that came into effect on January 1. Consequently, his brush with Sunderland City Council's trading standards officers has been elevated to a "test case" by those campaigning to defend
Britain's imperial measurements - its pounds and ounces, feet and inches, gallons and pints - against what they see as the creeping and creepy metrification prescribed by the petits Napoleons of Brussels and dutifully imposed by British local authorities.

The details of what happened in Southwick Market, Sunderland, on July 4 are not in dispute. Having been told several weeks earlier that his scales infringed regulations by measuring in pounds rather than kilos, Thoburn was
approached by two trading standards officers and two policemen. They seized three sets of imperial weight scales, and Thoburn was subsequently issued with a summons alleging that he was using a weighing machine that "did not
bear a stamp indicating that it had been passed by an Inspector as fit for such use". If found guilty, he could face a £5,000 fine and receive a criminal record. But the law is far from clear-cut on this matter. On Thoburn's behalf, the UK Independence Party has commissioned a gargantuan
Legal Opinion from Michael Shrimpton, a constitutional barrister, and published it - all 25,000 words - on the Internet
(www.silentmajority.co.uk/eurorealist).

If you have three or four hours to kill and an obsessive interest in weights and measures, it is an entertaining and occasionally hilarious read, taking in such diverse matters as the sinking of the Belgrano, the English Civil War, Hitler's alleged plan to use the Duke of Windsor as a puppet monarch
when he had conquered Britain, and good old Magna Carta - all of which, says Shrimpton, have a bearing on whether a greengrocer is entitled to sell a pound of bananas.

Bananas seems to be the right word. Nevertheless, the nub of Shrimpton's argument is explosive and goes right to the heart of the debate about whether Britain is ruled by Westminster or Brussels. Shrimpton maintains that the 1994 Units of Measurement Regulations (the rules, which took effect
on January 1, that are intended to make Britain compliant with the EU's directives on metrification) are only "secondary legislation". Therefore, says Shrimpton, they cannot overrule the "primary legislation" of an Act of Parliament such as the 1985 Weights and Measures Act. And since that Act
expressly gives traders the right to continue to use imperial measurements if they wish, trading standards officers have no legal basis for insisting on metrification, let alone for seizing greengrocers' scales.

The trading standards people are quick to fire back. "Mr Shrimpton's opinion has given rise to much uncertainty in the business world," concedes Ron Gainsford, the assistant director of LACOTS, the local authorities' coordinating body. "But that uncertainty is not reflected in the trading
standards world."

And just to stiffen the sinews of its members, LACOTS has commissioned its own legal opinion. To nobody's great surprise, this supports its view that trading standards officers are acting properly. "And our opinion comes from
a QC, which Mr Shrimpton is not," says Gainsford, a little ungraciously.

It is this fundamental clash of interpretations that may be tested by the Thoburn case. But Thoburn (who has been advised not to talk to the press before his court case) is by no means the only Metric Martyr. In South London a Lewisham greengrocer, Peter Collins, has been given six months by
Sutton council to "go metric", otherwise it threatens to revoke his trading licence. He claims that the council sent an undercover "agent provocateur" to trap him. In Bridlington last week a farmer, Nigel Stainsforth, became embroiled with a trading standards officer from East Riding council in a
literal tug-of-war over his scales.

And back in Sunderland a friend of Thoburn, the fishmonger Neil Herron, has also been served with an enforcement order over metrification by the council. His claim, repeated by traders around the country, is that over-zealous officers have stormed into shops and demanded their metric pound of flesh, as it were, without offering an ounce of sympathy for
traders. Sunderland's officials, Herron says, have "bullied, intimidated and harassed decent traders into submitting to compulsory metrification against their and their customers' wishes". It is a charge which Gainsford of LACOTS
strongly refutes. "The relevant new rules came in on January 

1," he says.
"The very fact that we are talking in November suggests that local authorities have not been over-zealous. All we want to ensure is a level playing field. When four fifths of all traders have complied with the law it isn't fair if others don't. And officers usually explore a whole range of alternative routes rather than prosecution. Unfortunately, a few incidents
have been highlighted by certain parts of the media and political spectrum for their own ends."

That, at least, is unarguable. For the UK Independence Party, which has already contributed more than £1,000 to Thoburn's legal costs, metrification is the big issue of its dreams. If it can show in the courts that the European directives have no legal force, then the Government would have to bring in a new metrification Bill, risking rebellions in the Commons and Lords. "It's by no means certain that it would be passed," says Tony Bennett, the UKIP's spokesman. "We sense a famous victory."

Such a claim by a fringe party might seem ridiculous. But during the summer there was a dramatic development in the Great Metrification War. For the trading standards people, the good news was that it involved just one trader. The bad news was that this trader was Tesco.

The supermarket giant became alarmed by the number of customers confusing kilograms with pounds when ordering food over the Internet, and then complaining when, for instance, a barrel of prawns arrived on their doorsteps. So it conducted a survey of its shoppers and found that 90 per
cent of them still "thought" in imperial, and 76 per cent wanted imperial measurements displayed clearly.

Tesco promptly altered its signage to give imperial prominence over metric - an action that trading standards officers have declared to be "100 per cent
contrary to EU law". But, oddly, Tesco has not been prosecuted, and this has inevitably led to accusations that officers are hounding little traders while running scared of the big boy.

"Obviously, Tesco's stance isn't the most helpful," admits Gainsford. But is it legal? "Well, we have had discussions with the Department of Trade and Industry and established a position that is, shall we say, not consistent with Tesco's."

So could Tesco, like Thoburn, end up in court? The company's spokesman does not seem unduly worried by the prospect. "There is an integrity issue here," he says. "We are not anti-Europe, we are pro-customer. We want the focus of
this debate to be on what customers want and need."

Ah yes, the customer. A curious feature of this whole debate is that all sides claim to be acting in the customers' interests. The Tory party says it wants loose goods "sold in measurements that everyone understands". The small traders say, as Tesco does, that they mark goods in imperial measures because that is what their customers like.

But on the other side Sunderland City Council says that it is prosecuting Thoburn "in the interests of consumers". And Allan Charlesworth, the boss of the Trading Standards Institute, also says - guess what? - that his members'
main concern is that "vulnerable consumers are protected".

So many people trying to help the consumer! How strange, then, that the poor old British public remains utterly bamboozled by this whole weights and measures business. And no wonder: we may buy our beer and milk by the pint,
but must buy our petrol by the litre; we can race horses over miles and furlongs, but have to watch human athletes compete over metres. We still quote our height in feet and inches, but our waistlines must be measured in centimetres. And even if we buy our potatoes by the kilo, we still worry
that they will "add pounds" to our figure.

It is just possible that the case starting today in Sunderland Magistrates' Court will help to sort out this hopeless mess. But it is equally possible that the lawyers' tortuous constitutional arguments will simply wrap the whole metrification issue in another blanket of obfuscation.

Either way, the process ain't going to be cheap. "If Steve Thoborn's case goes right through to the House of Lords, as we expect, we will need £150,000 to fight it," says Herron, Thoburn's fishmonger friend. "But we are confident that the British public will rally round and contribute."

In good old pounds, shillings and pence, no doubt.

Richard Morrison
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