On 27 September 1999, three Trident Ploughshares activists Ulla Røder from Denmark, Angie Zelter from England, and Ellen Moxley from Scotland, were acquitted of charges of malicious damage at Greenock Sheriff Court. The three women had boarded "Maytime", a barge moored in Loch Goil and involved in scientific work connected with the s berthed in the nearby Gareloch, and caused £80,000 worth of damage. As is often the case in trials relating to such actions, the defendants attempted to establish that their actions were necessary, in that they had prevented what they saw as "nuclear crime".