Pirate Radio Control Nearer

Press, Issue 31095, 25 June 1966, Page 15

Pirate Radio Control Nearer

.V.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, June 23. The silencing of the British pirate radio station. Radio City, and the fatal shooting of its owner this week may hasten Government legislation to control pirate radio stations. The owner, Mr R. Calvert, aged 37, was shot dead last Tuesday, a day after a boarding party had taken over Radio City on a fort at sea and closed it Radio City is one of 10

radio stations, mostly broadcasting pop music, which are. around the British coast outside the three-mile limit. I Seven of them are in the waters off London known as the Thames estuary. The boarding party on Radio City claimed they had shut the station because of unpaid equipment it was using. Police have charged a man in connexion with Mr Calvert's murder, and investigated the take-over. His wife, Mrs Dorothy Calvert, said today she intended to have Radio City back on the air within the next two or three days. She said: “1 want to near records coming back over the air. I have a team of engineers waiting to sai* out to the station as soon as the weather is good enough.” Mrs Calvert said she would [go out with the engineers even if the boarding party was still on the fort—a wartime defence fort abandoned [by the War Department, on which the station is established. ! “1 am taking over Radio

City and running it my way,” she said. Mrs Calvert, mother of two children, said it appeared the record players and the microphones at the station had been damaged and the crystals removed from its transmitter. The Government was accused of “paralysis” over legislation to control the stations in the House of Commons today. The Government said it firmly intended to legislate in the field, but could not say exactly when. However pressure from the Opposition and the loss of support for the pirate stations because of the week’s events is expected to hasten the legislation. Although outside territorial waters, the stations may be dealt with through their owners. All that is required is Parliamentary time to make the bill law. However it is not expected to take precedence over a wireless telegraphy bill, which is designed to increase the 8.8.C.’s revenue by [tightening on evasion of telesion and radio fees.