VETERAN peace campaigner Lindis Percy accused the Crown Prosecution Service and the police of conspiracy during a court hearing yesterday in which two charges against her were dropped.

Mrs Percy, a 61-year-old grandmother, faced allegations of contravening by-laws at the US spy base at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate - by refusing to leave the base when required by a Ministry of Defence police officer on February 21 and August 22 - when she appeared before the town's magistrates.

After Mrs Percy, a co-ordinator of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, had pleaded not guilty, prosecutor Peter Scott told court chairman John Carter he was instructed to offer no evidence on either matter.

He declined Mrs Percy's suggestion that he should give reasons for not proceeding, saying he was not obliged to do so.

Mrs Percy, a midwife and health visitor of Bellfield Avenue, Holderness, Hull, said the move meant that in the last six years no fewer than 120 by-law contravention charges brought against her had been dropped.

Campaigners wanted a case to go to trial to test their belief that the bylaws - the second set drafted after original ones were ruled invalid by the High Court - would not stand up to legal scrutiny.

''Not once in 120 times has the CPS allowed a case to come to court. I deliberately broke the law on both these occasions so the matter could come to court. We firmly believe these bylaws would be ruled invalid as the original ones were in 1993.''

She had been well inside the base on both occasions and had immediately told police she had ''committed a crime.''

Dropping case after case was a waste of court time and public money and seemed to be a manipulation of the law. ''There seems a whiff of conspiracy here.''

She said the CPS had dropped the cases because it knew, along with the police, campaigners and lawyers, that the bylaws were invalid. Manipulation of the law was unacceptable. "It is absolutely outrageous, it really is.''

Outside the court Mrs Percy, who will apply for costs to be awarded against the CPS, said campaigners were considering seeking a judicial review of the Crown's actions.

Updated: 10:52 Tuesday, April 29, 2003