- High-Profile Acquittals (February 2026): Because their motive was to halt the manufacturing of weapons used in the Gaza conflict, the activists sought to invoke the "lawful excuse" defense. State attempts to characterize the protest under counter-terrorism and aggravated burglary frameworks failed. In a major win for activists, a Woolwich Crown Court jury refused to convict any of the six on aggravated burglary.
- The Retrial (Spring 2026): Following the partial verdicts, crown prosecutors pursued a retrial for the remaining charges. In May 2026, four of the activists (Head, Corner, Kamio, and Rajwani) were convicted of criminal damage. Samuel Corner was also convicted of a lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm (without intent) for an altercation with a police officer during the break-in. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
In 2007, with Robin Tam QC, Johnson represented MI6 and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the Inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. [7]
In March 2024, sitting in the High Court with Dame Victoria Sharp, Johnson found that Julian Assange had a real prospect of success with his appeal against extradition to the United States on three of the grounds he had argued, but they adjourned the leave to appeal application to give the US government three weeks to give assurances on the three matters.[8] On 20 May, not satisfied with the response from the US, they granted Assange leave to appeal.[9]
Rajiv Menon KC on behalf of defendant Charlotte Head (at first trial)
Thursday January 8th 2026
https://realmedia.press/the-filton-trial-defence-speeches/#rajiv1
Great changes come about because of the extraordinary courage and personal sacrifice of ordinary people. The anthropologist Margaret Mead put it well when she said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful community citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” An example close to home of extraordinary courage and personal sacrifice is the suffragettes, who at the beginning of the 20th century waged a militant campaign to secure the vote for women in Britain. Their slogan was “deeds, not words.” They understood that men would never give women the vote unless forced to do so. Asking politely was a waste of time. They organised large marches and rallies and engaged in civil disobedience and direct action. They vandalised property, chained themselves to buildings, and disrupted political meetings. When imprisoned, they went on hunger strike, leading to brutal force feeding by the authorities.
Today, we celebrate the suffragettes for their heroism and for securing the vote for women. There are memorials to the suffragettes in public places around the country. They are part of the GCSE history curriculum. Recently, the London Overground Line between Gospel Oak and Barking was renamed the Suffragette Line. Members of Parliament and the mainstream press accused them of taking the law into their own hands, denouncing them as extremists and terrorists, aggressive and violent.
They were remarkable women from all walks of life, united in their hope, their despair, their defiance, and their dedication. Charlotte Head is also a remarkable woman. And I say that without any reservation. This is not something that lawyers defending in criminal trials often say about their clients.
I spent some time when she was giving evidence on her story, her journey and her principles – how she became politicised – it is fundamental to assessing her character, the credibility of her account, her conduct during the action, and her state of mind at critical times.
Mr Menon spent some time reminding the jury of Charlotte’s upbringing, her selfless volunteering for years in Calais, her work with victims of domestic abuse in London, and after October 2023, how she became involved with the campaign on Hackney Council to divest from the arms trade and Israel. We covered that in our report of Day Ten of the trial which you can find here, which also charts her route into Palestine Action through a non-violent direct action training day, and her decision to join a ‘high level arrestable action’.
She told the jury about a specific video of a father in Gaza holding his young child, who had been decapitated by an Israeli bomb. She told Ms Heer she did not believe she was going to be committing any crime when she indicated she might be prepared to join a high-level arrestable action, because she believed that what she was doing was going to be lawful.
Mr Menon said Ms Heer had been unfair characterising Ms Head as “a woman in a hurry”, because she had actually been trying to effect real change within the system for years.
The genocide was continuing, and as a country, we were complicit by allowing the likes of Elbit Systems to operate freely here, creating their weapons for use in Gaza. If anything, Charlotte had been incredibly patient before she indicated she might be prepared, this is at the training event, to volunteer for an action that would result in her getting arrested.
Mr Menon also said Ms Heer was wrong to dismiss the claim that activists worked on a ‘need to know’ basis and to suggest Charlotte was an organiser. Ms Head had offered to buy the van and drive because of her years of experience in Calais.
Charlotte stayed at the Airbnb in Bristol, where she met her co-defendants in the red team and others involved in the action. You know about the various discussions, first on Signal and then at the Airbnb, that Charlotte, the rest of the red team, and occasionally some of the organisers had about the action and about the red lines of the action. You know that the red team were told by the organisers that they would have plenty of time to damage property if they managed to get into the factory. The security guards would stay out and the police would take some time to arrive. We now know, of course, that the organisers got that terribly wrong. But that’s not the fault of the red team, given their inexperience. Being naïve does not make you guilty of a criminal offence. Please bear that in mind. And finally you know that Charlotte did not anticipate being remanded in custody and being denied bail. She had only taken a week off work and had a flat with all her possessions in them in Hackney. I’ve spent some time on this because your ultimate assessment of her as a person will inevitably be central to the factual conclusions you reach and the verdicts you return.
Mr Menon told the jury they’d be retiring next week to consider a verdict and will have heard several other speeches and the judge’s summary by then, so reminded them it was OK to make notes if it helped. He also said he wouldn’t be playing footage yet again, but they would be able to watch that in the jury room as much as they needed. He also would only be taking them to a few of the documents from their bundle. But first he wanted to cover five general points:
- Palestine and Israel’s attack on Gaza
- Palestine Action
- Elbit Systems
- The action against the Elbit factory in Filton
- The missing CCTV footage from inside the Elbit factory at Filton
1 Palestine and Israel’s attack on Gaza
When the trial began, the judge warned you that while you were entitled to your views on what he called the war in Gaza, they were irrelevant to this case. This was a fair point to make at this stage of the case.
Prejudging matters based on your pre-existing views, when you had yet to hear any evidence, would have been wrong and contrary to your affirmations. But the position now is different. You’ve heard evidence about Israel’s attack on Gaza, and about Palestine more generally, from those defendants who have given evidence. And none of that evidence by the defendants has been challenged or contradicted by the prosecution. None of it.
You’ve heard evidence that there’s a genocide taking place in Gaza, that Israel was founded on top of Palestinian land, that Britain played a key role in this, that there have been wars in Israel and Palestine for years, that there is a settler colonial occupation of Palestinian land, that by the summer of 2024, some 40,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military in less than a year, and that a third of them were children. More children have been killed in Gaza than in the Ukraine war. There have been many reports circulating of atrocities being committed in Gaza, including people being buried under the rubble and hospitals being bombed. This is some of the evidence you’ve heard, and it is all evidence in this case. You are entitled to take it into account and give it what weight you think it justifies. Indeed, you may think it would be wrong, even perverse, to ignore that evidence that you’ve heard about the killing and destruction that has been taking place in Gaza now for over two years.
How can you assess the defendants’ characters, their credibility, their conduct at Filton or their states of mind at critical times in the chronology that ended in that action? How can you assess that if you ignore the wider context of what has been happening in Gaza and the impact that those events have had on these defendants? Are you supposed to forget your pasts, your own knowledge of the world, your values, your sense of what is right and wrong and fair and reasonable, when you consider the evidence in this case? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Given you are randomly selected members of the public, it is probably fair to assume that there is a broad range of views amongst you, and that some of you know more and some of you know less. You all know about the horrific events of the 7th of October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and taking a further 250 people as hostages. You all know that Israel has been retaliating ever since, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, injuring hundreds of thousands more, destroying the majority of Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure, and creating one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. I mean, this is all common knowledge.
You need to take care not to allow undue emotion, and your particular views about what has been happening, to distort your assessment of the evidence. It’s important to remain objective, but you are not robots. And you cannot unknow what you already know. Nobody should ask you to do so.
The reason we celebrate trial by jury in this country, although sadly who knows for how much longer, is that there is no better system of criminal justice anywhere in the world than 12 randomly selected members of the public, like you, bringing their individual minds to a problem.
2 Palestine Action
The defendants have told you about Palestine Action. None of that evidence has been challenged by the prosecution and you can be sure they would have if there were lies or exaggeration.
Palestine Action was formed several years ago. It has garnered considerable popular support in this country. In August of last year, one defendant told you Palestine Action had over 200,000 followers on Instagram. It had, by August 2024, organised hundreds of actions, maybe 400. They’d involved direct action of various kinds – lock-ons, spraying paint, breaking windows, occupying rooftops, dismantling cameras, and entering premises without permission and damaging weapons and other property, like the Filton action. None of those actions involved unlawful violence on people, let alone serious unlawful violence. Those arrested for their involvement in actions had always been granted bail with one possible exception – someone who you were told had been remanded in custody for a short period of time, perhaps because of some previous convictions, and even that person was eventually granted bail.
You know Palestine Action’s primary target was an Israeli weapons company called Elbit Systems. None of this evidence is in dispute. And you may think it’s important evidence to bear in mind. But there’s an elephant in the room, so to speak. You also know, because it was all over the news at the time, and because His Lordship gave you a direction about it at the start of the trial, that the former Home Secretary proscribed Palestine Action in June of last year under our terrorism laws. It’s now a banned organisation, and it’s illegal to be a member or to express support for Palestine Action. His Lordship rightly directed you that you mustn’t hold it against these defendants. It’s completely irrelevant as far as any issue in the case is concerned.
I’m bringing it up again because it’s the sort of issue that can cause serious prejudice against the defendants. His Lordship and I have not seen eye to eye on everything during this trial. I hope that’s a fair comment to make. But on this matter, we are totally on the same page and in complete agreement. I anticipate the judge will repeat this direction when he sums up the case to you.
As well as the evidence from defendants about Palestine Action, you also have documents in your jury bundle, which you can read at your leisure. All I was going to say at this point was that—it was the obvious point— that there is nothing in any of those documents to suggest that Palestine Action advocates violence against people, or that the plan at Filton involved an intention to injure or incapacitate security guards with sledgehammers if the need arose.
But on Tuesday in her closing speech, Ms Heer said that although none of the documents explicitly refer to the use of violence or weapons against people, that doesn’t mean that there was no plan to use violence or weapons against people, “as Palestine Action would hardly have wanted the police or the general public to know that they were planning a violent act”.
What does that mean? Are you being invited by the prosecution to speculate that there was a plan to use violence or weapons against people, even though the planning documents on which the prosecution rely as a key plank of their case against the defendants say nothing of the kind?
This is not a game – the defendant’s lives and futures are at stake. The case is far too serious for anyone to be telling you that you can fairly and properly conclude from documents that do not speak about using violence or weapons against people that the plan, in fact, was to use violence and weapons against people. Please do not be led up the garden path about these documents.
3 Elbit Systems
When opening the prosecution case, Ms Heer described Elbit Systems as an “Israeli-linked defence company”. I’m not going to labour this point, but it’s a matter for you whether that is a fair and accurate description of Elbit, or something of a mischaracterisation. Either way, it wouldn’t have escaped your notice that on several occasions during the trial, if a question was asked about Elbit Systems or what the witness knew about Elbit Systems, His Lordship intervened and stopped it being asked.
The first time His Lordship intervened was when I was cross-examining the security guard, Mr Shaw. I asked him what I thought was a pretty innocuous, uncontroversial question. A yes/no question. I asked him whether he knew Elbit was Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. The judge intervened and said if I wanted to ask a question along these lines we’d need to have a discussion about it. I responded in your presence that it was just one question. The judge asked me to move on, and I did.
His Lordship also intervened during Charlotte’s evidence. When I was asking her questions, Charlotte was telling you about the Palestine Action training event she had attended and what she was told about Elbit Systems. When His Lordship intervened again, I said in the jury’s presence that I was asking Charlotte about the company targeted in this case, which was directly relevant to her state of mind, and that this was a proper area for me to ask her about.
The jury were asked to leave court for a few minutes.
There’s nothing unusual that when there’s a dispute between the parties at a criminal trial, or between one party and the trial judge, juries are often asked to leave court for those matters to be discussed in their absence. When you returned to court, I moved on to a different topic. In other words, Charlotte was not allowed to give any further evidence about what was said about Elbit at the Palestine Action Training event, or about what she knew about Elbit more generally.
His Lordship also intervened during the evidence of Zoe Rogers when her barrister Ms Mogan was asking her questions. Zoe was giving evidence about how she’d read about Palestine Action on their website and on Instagram and how this had led her to Elbit’s website. Before Ms Mogan could ask Zoe about what she had read on that website, His Lordship stopped her saying something like, “This is an area outside what I have ruled is relevant – if you want to pursue this, we will have to argue it. What Ms Rogers knew about Elbit has been adequately covered”.
In your presence, Ms Mogan tried to reason with His Lordship. She said that Zoe should be allowed to give her account of what she’d learned from Elbit’s website. His Lordship said that Ms. Rogers had already given a sufficient account and so Ms Mogan had no choice but to move on, which she did.
So that, in summary, is the position. His Lordship has restricted what the defendants have been allowed to tell you they knew about Elbit and what they knew about Elbit’s role in the Israeli attack on Gaza. Consequently, you do not know everything that the defendants knew about Elbit before each of them individually decided to take that major step of getting involved in the action against the factory in Filton.
For the avoidance of any doubt, before I’m criticised, our system does allow trial judges to make rulings as to what evidence is relevant and what evidence is not. If a judge decides that certain evidence should not be given on the grounds that it is not relevant to any issue in the case, then that judge is entitled to exclude such evidence, however strange it might seem, however much the defendants or their lawyers might object.
But the consequence of such a judicial approach to the evidence in this case is that you’ve only heard very limited evidence about Elbit, and how what the defendants knew about Elbit influenced their decision-making – you’ve been prevented from hearing any more. Having said all of that – and I hope I’ve summarised it fairly – the little you have been permitted to hear from several of the defendants about Elbit is nevertheless instructive.
You’ve heard that Elbit is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, that Elbit produces 85% of the weapons used by the Israeli military, that Elbit produces drones, munitions, and battle simulators. You’ve heard that the weapons Elbit was making were being sent to Israel, and that Elbit tests those weapons on Palestinians. That Elbit was proud about producing 85 percent of Israel’s combat drones, that Elbit’s CEO gave a talk during which he boasted that war was good for business, and that Elbit’s employees have stated publicly that they are proud to be the backbone of the Israeli military. Finally, that the Filton factory was Elbit’s newest facility in the U.K. and was opened by the Israeli ambassador.
So this is all important evidence in the case. And what the defendants told you about Elbit are not just their beliefs. They are facts, and none of them were disputed by the prosecution. Not one of them.
If any of the evidence that any of the defendants gave you about Elbit was false or exaggerated or misleading, the prosecution would have challenged that evidence, but they didn’t. So you can be sure that what the defendants told you about this company is true. There’s no evidence to contradict any of it.
Only the jury can decide what weight to give the evidence you’ve heard about Elbit, or any other evidence. You may think that it’s incredibly important evidence that you’ve heard when you assess the character of the defendants, the credibility of their accounts, their conduct during the action, and their state of mind at critical times during the chronology of events that culminated in that action. It might be important to take into account, indeed to remember at all times, that the target of this action was a massive weapons company that has played a critical role in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, as opposed to, for example, a company that makes fluffy toys for children.
How can you reach true verdicts according to the evidence if you ignore the unchallenged, uncontradicted evidence you’ve heard about this dreadful company?
4 The action against the factory at Filton (what went wrong?)
At the start of the trial Ms. Heer told you that the action was meticulously organised, with a step-by-step action plan, and everyone taking part knew what was required of them. She told you there was a black team of ‘coverts’ who were to remain outside the facility and overwhelm the security guards before fleeing the scene, and a red team of ‘overts’ who were to enter the factory and cause as much damage to property as possible before the police arrived to arrest them.
Generally, I accept that the action was well organised. But equally, it did not remotely go to plan. The footage from inside of the factory makes that abundantly clear. What you see in that footage is chaos, not a carefully executed plan.
You see members of the red team trying to respond to the unexpected presence of security guards as best as they can by shouting, by swearing, by lighting flares, by holding their sledgehammers in such a way to try and look as intimidating as possible without actually using them as weapons of offence. But “a plan to use the sledgehammers to injure or incapacitate the security guards if necessary”? Please – that’s not what you can see in that footage.
Don’t forget that everyone involved in this action, including the organisers, were laypeople. It wasn’t some sort of military operation by professional, trained and qualified soldiers. In fact, none of the red team had any prior experience of being involved in an action like this. I mean no disrespect to any of them, but they were completely out of their depth.
Although there was some some contingency planning, it was wholly inadequate due to several unexpected events occurring that considerably derailed the action. I want to identify five specific things for the jury.
- Something happened outside the factory, far out of the knowledge or sight of the red team which had never previously happened in hundreds of actions. It began when security guard, Nigel Shaw, ran towards a stationary member of the black team who was armed with an axe and a whip, blindsided him and whacked him with an umbrella. You’ve seen the body-worn footage. I’m sure you’ll be watching it again when you retire. Now, this was quite obviously totally unexpected. But what happened after that was that Nigel Shaw and Angelo Volante disarmed that member of the black team, restrained and detained him, and dragged him around the corner of the building. Until that happened, members of the black team had been engaging in making as much noise and creating as much smoke as possible by shouting and setting off fireworks and flares. They were also armed with weapons, including axes and whips, which were being held in such a way as to be visible to the security guards. And the strategy, you may think, of the black team was clear. It was to create as much chaos as possible, to look as intimidating as possible, to distract security guards for as long as possible to give the red team as much time as possible to barricade themselves inside the factory so they could damage as much property belonging to Elbit as possible before the police arrived and they were arrested. Up to the point of that umbrella incident, nobody in the black team was attacking anybody. I must be clear that I am not criticising Mr Shaw – he was a security guard, entitled to use reasonable force against trespassers – and consequently a number of the black team tried to rescue the one who had been detained. Although the guards’ BWV is far from clear, it must have been during time that Mr. Shaw was unfortunately assaulted and suffered a wound to his head that later had to be closed with staples. I want to be clear about this – the assault on Mr. Shaw should never have happened. I’m not justifying it in any way whatsoever. But to suggest that the assault on Mr. Shaw was part of a plan is, on the evidence, absurd.
- The jury knows that the red team had in their rucksacks, ropes and tape. The plan, several defendants told the jury, was to use these ropes and tape to barricade themselves inside to delay any entry by the security guards, and eventually the police. But the organisers had no idea in advance that the design of the doors in the warehouse wouldn’t allow that. They didn’t have handles, so consequently, barricading was impossible. They tried, and it was hopeless to put up that wooden pallet on one of the doors, but it was hardly a barricade. And so this was the second thing that went wrong.
- The red team hadn’t expected security to enter – they were meant to be dealing with the people outside. You you can see on the CCTV and BWV footage and from their reactions that they were taken by surprise. While members of the red team were still able to destroy a considerable amount of Elbit property, including drones and other military equipment, the action clearly didn’t go to plan.
- The fourth thing to go wrong was that they only had about 20 minutes inside the factory before the police arrived. They clearly thought they would have much more time than that, hence the fact that some of the defendants brought food with them in the rucksacks.
- The final thing to go wrong was Sam Corner striking Sergeant Evans on her back with a sledgehammer. Whatever the jury decides in relation to Count Four, it should obviously never have happened. Mr Corner’s barrister, Mr. Wainwright, will undoubtedly address you in detail on this matter. I just want to say that like the assault on Mr. Shaw, it was clearly not part of a plan. Only Sam Corner has been charged with that assault – none of the other members of the red team have been charged with intentionally assisting or encouraging Sam Corner to strike Sergeant Evans with a sledgehammer. This is the clearest indication that what happened arose in a split second and could not have been expected or predicted by any of Sam Corner’s co-defendants and was absolutely not pre-planned. Even the prosecution isn’t alleging that any defendant other than Sam Corner is criminally responsible for what happened to Sergeant Evans. That’s why only Sam Corner is charged on count four.
The reason I’ve set out at some length what went wrong with this action is that it is important evidence for you to bear in mind when you consider the evidence as a whole, and in particular the prosecution’s contention, which we say is wholly unsupported by the evidence, that all those involved in this action – the organisers, the black team and the red team, were acting together as part of a joint plan which involved the use of unlawful violence against people, if necessary.
5 The missing CCTV footage from inside the factory
The jury still does not have a satisfactory answer as to what precisely has happened to this missing footage.
In her closing speech, Ms Heer floated the possibility that the defence might say that the absence of certain footage was suspicious. Well, she was right to forewarn you about that. Because, yes, you may think it is suspicious or at least utterly baffling and ultimately unfair to the defendants.
The jury were given a plan of the factory during the prosecution opening when the jury bundles were distributed. And then you were given the smaller plan with the handwriting on it towards the end of the prosecution case. And you will note the differences. They are the identification on the smaller plan of four additional cameras, 22, 23, 24, and 25, and the angles at which they were filming. If you look at what 22, 23, and 24 were filming, they clearly covered relevant spaces within that warehouse.
Because the jury only had the larger plan during the opening, there was no mention by Ms Heer of cameras 22 to 25. So how has it come about that this evidential issue became the final thing you heard about during the prosecution case? You may remember it first arose when Ms Hamad, on behalf of Leona Kamio, asked the first prosecution witness, Detective Constable Phoebe Webber, who was assisting prosecuting counsel in presenting the CCTV evidence, whether the witness knew where those cameras were. And Detective Constable Weber said she did not.
The first witness to mention one of those cameras was Angelo Volante, when also cross-examined by Ms Hammad. When cross-examined, he said there was a camera that covered that alcove area, and it turns out he was right. That triggered, you now know, a number of questions by the defence. And this is not rocket science. You can imagine the obvious question that any defence lawyer would ask in this situation. Is Mr. Volante right? But, despite their evidence and their efforts, there remain unanswered questions.
So what is the evidential position now, taking all that evidence that you subsequently heard into account? We know that cameras 22 to 25 were all functioning properly and recording on the night of the action. We don’t know what has happened to the footage from those four cameras or what the frame rates of these four cameras were. Now, it’s important to note, pausing there, that even if they were only recording a frame every 17 seconds like camera 21, they would still contain footage of some of the defendants, given we know the areas these cameras covered and how long some of the defendants were in those areas on the night.
For example, one of the stills from camera 21, which I’m sure Mr. Morris will be addressing you about in due course, shows Mr. Volante kicking Jordan Devlin. So even a camera with a 17-second lapse between recording is potentially a camera that can produce useful evidence. Now, as I see it—and obviously the jury will assess this, whether this is a fair conclusion—there are only two possible answers to the mystery of the missing footage.
The first is that the footage recorded on the night of the action by cameras 22 to 25 was not shown to Detective Sergeant Sarah Grant when she attended the Elbit factory the next day, 7th August. Or she failed to notice the defendants in the footage from in particular cameras 22, 23 and 24 and therefore didn’t have that footage downloaded and copied.
I can’t think of a third possibility. The cameras we know were working and recording, so either Sarah Grant wasn’t shown it or she just missed it. Let me deal with the latter possibility first. You’ll remember her evidence. I suppose it’s possible. Everybody’s fallible. It’s possible that she could have made an error. She was viewing footage from multiple cameras simultaneously on multiple screens. The jury will remember my questions in relation to that. But she told you that she downloaded and copied all footage that showed movement when she was viewing that footage when she attended the factory. And we know that she downloaded and copied footage from camera 21, which recorded, as I’ve said, frames every 17 seconds. So she didn’t miss that.
It’s a matter for the jury, but you may think that it’s unlikely that this experienced police officer would have missed relevant footage from other cameras. So what about the first possibility? Is it possible that Detective Sergeant Grant was not shown the footage recorded on the night of the action by cameras 22 to 25 when she attended the Filton factory? And if so, what’s happened to the footage?
The prosecution could have called Witness Alpha to answer the unanswered questions. It was Witness Alpha, after all, who Sergeant Grant told you she met when she attended the factory and with whom she subsequently communicated by email. Witness Alpha, Ms Grant told you, was a senior member of Elbit security, who she believed was high up in the company. I’m referring to him as Witness Alpha because his identity, as you know, has been withheld from the defence. And if I’m wrong that Witness Alpha was the appropriate witness, the prosecution could have called someone else from Elbit to deal with this unanswered question.
But no Elbit witness has been called. The security guards, you will remember, were not employed by Elbit directly. They were employed by another company.
So Elbit remains in the shadows, hidden and protected, but not, ladies and gentlemen, in the corridors of power where no doubt they are welcomed, wined, and dined, whilst Charlotte and all the other co-accused in this case have been denied bail and have been locked up for 17 months.
The long and the short of the missing footage saga is that it is a total mess.
But let me be clear about something in case I’m later accused of this. I am not inviting the jury to speculate about what the missing footage might show. I’m not inviting you to speculate about what Witness Alpha, or any other Elbit witness if called, would have told you if they had been called by the prosecution. That would be wholly wrong. However, you are absolutely entitled to draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence that you’ve heard on this topic, which I hope I’ve summarised fairly for you.
The jury is entitled to draw reasonable conclusions as to what has happened to the missing footage and why it is not part of the evidence in this case. What conclusions you think are reasonable to draw is entirely a matter for the jury and not for anybody else because you are the sole judges of the facts. I’ll just return to the suggestion floated by Ms Heer during her closing speech that the defence is allegedly seeking to take advantage of the gaps in the footage.
If that were true, why is it the defence and not the prosecution that’s been trying to get to the bottom about this footage, why is it the defence that has been encouraging the prosecution to call witnesses to explain the mess, whatever that explanation might be? It’s not our fault—and I’m speaking now collectively for the defence—that the prosecution did not disclose to us the relevant material on this before the trial began, and that it was only disclosed after we started asking questions as a result of the answers that Ms Hammad received from the questions she was asking Detective Constable Webber and then Angelo Volante.
It’s not our fault that the key questions about the missing footage remain unanswered.
That is all I want to say about that fifth and final general topic. I’ve now completed all I want to say about those matters.
At this point the court adjourned for lunch.
After lunch Mr Menon began dealing with the particular three charges against his client, Charlotte Head.
Aggravated burglary is count one on the indictment and is the most serious of the three charges that all the defendants face. How you approach the charges is a matter for you, but the prosecution have drafted the indictment in the order they have – aggravated burglary, criminal damage, violent disorder – with good reason, and I’m going to follow that same approach as well.
The first general point I make – and I’m not going to beat around the bush about this – is that to prosecute these defendants with aggravated burglary, given the evidence in this case, I’d suggest is manifestly misconceived and amounts to deliberate prosecutorial overkill. A jury could not possibly be sure on the evidence, that Charlotte or any of her co-defendants is guilty of this most serious of criminal charges.
The indictment says that the six defendants, with others, entered with intent to do unlawful damage to the building or anything therein, and at the time of committing the said entry, had with them weapons of offence, namely sledgehammers.
The first thing I want to say about the particulars of the offence is that it’s important to remember that a sledgehammer is only a weapon of offence (a sort of legal definition), if it is intended to be used to injure or incapacitate another person. In other words, a sledgehammer without the necessary intention is not a weapon of offence.
Bearing that in mind, the key question is whether the defendants intended to use the sledgehammers that they had with them, to injure or incapacitate a security guard if the need arose, when they entered the Elbit building without permission. And it’s the building that’s important as opposed to the premises, which would include the yard, for example.
His Lordship has given you a Route To Verdict with three questions, and it’s the third question that is the clincher, so to speak, in this case. But let’s go through all of them.
First – are you sure that on the 6th of August, 2024, the defendant entered Elbit’s building without permission? I’ll address you solely on behalf of Charlotte in relation to this, and obviously, there’s no dispute that when she drove the prison van through the shutters into the building, she was entering without permission. So, in her case, there is no issue as far as that is concerned.
Second – are you sure that at the time of entering Elbit’s building, the defendant intended to damage property in the building? Again, in her case, no dispute. She told you that was her intention.
Next we come to the key third question. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but let’s just read it. “Are you sure that the defendant had with them a sledgehammer, which at the time of entering the building, they…” let’s put Charlotte’s name in… “Are you sure that Charlotte had with her a sledgehammer, which at the time of entering the building, she intended to use to cause injury to or incapacitate a security guard if needed, or encouraged or assisted a co-defendant to have with them a sledgehammer, which at the time of entering the building, they both intended to be used by the co-defendant for that purpose?”
The reason that this is a bit wordy is that in respect of any crime committed by multiple people, you can have a principal party who commits the act (or principal parties), and you can have secondary parties who intentionally encourage or assist the act with the same state of mind. They can both be guilty, the principal parties and the secondary parties, depending on the evidence. The question is wordy because the first bit is addressing the conduct of the principal party, and the bit in parentheses is addressing the conduct of a possible secondary party.
Bearing that question in mind, there are four key legal points to emphasise about aggravated burglary as a criminal offence. The first is that in order to answer that third question in relation to aggravated burglary (which is fundamentally about intention), you will need to consider the state of mind of each defendant.
In this case, there’s no direct evidence of intention, such as a confession by a defendant. Rather, the prosecution allege that there is other evidence, circumstantial evidence in this case, from which the jury can reasonably conclude that each defendant had the necessary intention. So your task when considering whether there is any such evidence is a far from straightforward task.
I say this because you have to avoid any guess or speculation when considering what a defendant’s state of mind was at the relevant time. You know this because the jury have been given a legal direction from His Lordship that guessing or speculating is expressly forbidden.
The problem is (an obvious point, but important to make), that it’s not always easy to distinguish between a guess or a speculation on the one hand, and a reasonable conclusion from the evidence on the other. But that’s precisely what you must do in respect of every factual conclusion you reach in this case, not only in relation to aggravated burglary. The jury must reach a proper and reasonable conclusion on the evidence, as opposed to a guess or a speculation.
And you also know that any reasonable conclusion you reach is one that you must be sure about. That’s the standard of proof in a criminal trial. It used to be called “beyond reasonable doubt.” We’ve simplified the language now – “You must be sure”. Anything less than that, the only appropriate verdict is not guilty. You have to be sure before you convict, nothing less will do. It’s about looking into the mind of the individual defendants, drawing reasonable conclusions from other evidence, not guessing or speculating.
The second point is that to be guilty of aggravated burglary, the defendant must have the necessary intention at the time when they enter the building without permission – i.e. when the van went through the shutters and ended up in the loading bay. That’s the time at which the necessary intention has to be there in the minds of each individual defendant. That is the relevant time.
The third point (and these aren’t new points – they’re all in His Lordship’s legal directions), is that an intention only to frighten or scare a security guard with a sledgehammer when entering the building without permission is not enough. I suggest it is not strong evidence – as Ms. Heer put it on Tuesday in her closing speech – of an intent to injure. Do you remember what she said? “If somebody has an intent to frighten them, that’s really strong evidence of an intent to injure”. I’m sorry, it isn’t. They’re completely different. They’re completely different in the circumstances. Be careful about that. What you need is quite explicit – there has to be that intention to injure or incapacitate a security guard at the point of entry, at that time of entry.
The fourth point is that, although no defendant is saying that they formed an intention to injure or incapacitate someone after they entered and when they were confronted by security guards, even if they did, it’s important to remember that an intention formed later is not enough. The intention has to be at the time of entry.
So putting all that together, my overarching point on aggravated burglary on behalf of Charlotte is that there is simply no evidence from which you could reasonably conclude that she—or any of the other co-defendants for that matter – when entering the Filton factory without permission, intended, if the need arose, to injure or incapacitate any security guard with a sledgehammer, or to intentionally assist or encourage any of her co-defendants to do so with that same intention.
There are nine things in terms of the evidence that I hope will assist:
1 Charlotte has no previous convictions or cautions. In fact prior to the 6th of August 2024, she’d never been arrested before. His Lordship has given a direction about good character. It’s at Section 8 of the legal directions. Although previous good character is not an absolute defence – hardly surprising – it is a positive feature which should be taken into account in Charlotte’s favour when assessing her credibility – when you consider whether you accept what she’s told you. It’s potentially relevant in terms of assessing the credibility of the account given to you by a defendant.
It’s also a positive feature which you should take into account in a defendant’s favour, in that if a defendant has not offended previously, it may make it less likely they’ve offended on this occasion. Now, obviously, the weight that you, the jury, give to a defendant’s previous good character is a matter for you. As with all factual matters, the jury decides how important any evidence is. But given the seriousness of the allegations in this case, you may think that Charlotte’s previous good character speaks volumes and is hugely significant when assessing whether or not she has that intent to injure or capacity, or whether she had that intent at the relevant time.
2 It’s not just that she has no previous convictions or cautions – she’s someone of positive good character. I’ve already addressed you at length about her background and her work You also heard good character evidence about Charlotte read to you from two witnesses. I’m sure His Lordship will remind you about the detail of that later. They both described Charlotte in glowing terms. It’s nonsensical to suggest that someone like her would have signed up to a plan involving the use of violence to injure or incapacitate a security guard with sledgehammers if the need arose. Everything you know about her suggests the contrary, namely that she would never have signed up to that kind of plan.
3 In addition to her positive good character, there are the principles and values that she clearly holds dear and which have governed her life. She told you that she’s anti-war and anti-violence. Remember the job that she was doing at this time in 2024 – helping and protecting women and children fleeing domestic violence. And she went even beyond that, telling you she doesn’t think it is morally right to use violence in any way. She doesn’t believe it works as a political strategy. In other words, nobody, as far as she was concerned, was to be physically harmed during this action.
She told you too, that the red team had agreed that red line of no violence against the person. To convict Charlotte of aggravated burglary, you would have to be sure that all of what she told you about her commitment to nonviolence was an elaborate lie, and that in truth she would have been perfectly prepared to strike a security guard with a sledgehammer to injure or incapacitate if the need arose. With all due respect, how could you possibly reach that conclusion?
4 You’ve heard evidence from Charlotte and the other defendants about the hundreds of previous actions by Palestine Action over the years, in relation to the absence of violence. Why on earth would they suddenly, after years, abandon nonviolent direct action and embrace a wholly different approach involving planned violence with sledgehammers against security guards? What’s been alleged doesn’t make any sense. Palestine Action was not an organisation of violent people who assaulted security guards during their actions. That’s the evidence that you’ve heard.
5 Before it was proscribed, it was an organisation active on social media and thriving on mass support from members of the public. It was an organisation, whatever one thinks about its methods, that was committed to making a positive contribution to the struggle for Palestinian freedom and self-determination. Using violence against security guards would have been completely antithetical, completely contrary to the aims, objectives of this organisation and their strategy of nonviolent direct action, and not to mention utterly counterproductive.
6 I’ve already spoken about the Palestine Action documents in the jury bundle, and what Ms Heer said about them in her closing speech. None of those documents speak about using violence or causing injury to security guards if the need arose. None of them even speak about the fundamental right of using reasonable force to defend oneself or another if attacked. The best, from a prosecution perspective, is a reference to the covert black team, possibly having to push back and overwhelm security. But there’s not a single reference to the overt red team having to use force against security guards, whether the need arose or not. If the prosecution is right, and the plan all along was, if necessary, to injure or incapacitate security guards with sledgehammers, then this, you might think, would have explicitly featured somewhere in these detailed planning documents. The Crown cannot have its cake and eat it in relation to this point.
Is there any evidence that Charlotte was party to using a sledgehammer to injure or incapacitate a security guard inside that factory? Short answer, no. Not one of the three security guards, Mr Shaw, Mr Volante or Mr Luke, alleges that Charlotte struck or attempted to strike them with a sledgehammer, let alone injured or incapacitated them with a sledgehammer. And there’s no CCTV or body-worn footage of Charlotte striking or attempting to strike any of them. The best, from a prosecution perspective, is a few seconds of footage from Mr. Luke’s BWV footage of Charlotte standing, with a sledgehammer resting on her shoulder, a few meters away from where Leona Kamio and Mr Luke are tussling over another sledgehammer, which they’re both holding. Charlotte does nothing with the sledgehammer she’s holding – she doesn’t strike Mr Luke with it, she doesn’t swing it, she does nothing. In her closing speech, Ms Heer said Charlotte was threatening unlawful violence by brandishing the sledgehammer at Mr Luke. Come on – that is so totally over the top. She is not threatening Mr Luke. She’s just standing there. It’s literally up for two seconds. And then what does she do? She turns around, hands the sledgehammer to Mr. Devlin, and runs off to smash more property.
You may think that what you can see in that footage is a nonviolent woman, totally out of her depth. She doesn’t know what to do, and so she does nothing. How can you infer from that, an intent to injure or incapacitate a security guard? Where is the evidence of aggravated burglary? What about secondary participation in aggravated burglary? There’s no evidence, either from a security guard or from the footage, that Charlotte intentionally assisted or encouraged one of her co-defendants to use a sledge hammer against a security guard.
7 If you look at both the CCTV and the body-worn footage, at the interactions between the red team and the security guards, the only person who uses a sledgehammer as a weapon of offence to strike another person was Mr Volante, who struck Jordan Devlin on two separate occasions with a sledgehammer and threatened others with it too. I’m at a complete loss as to how you could ever, given the evidence, convict Charlotte of aggravated burglary. I repeat, there’s no evidence from which you could reasonably infer an intention on her part to injure or incapacitate a security guard with a sledgehammer, either when she entered the factory without permission or, for that matter, at any time prior to her arrest.
8 I’ll return briefly to Mr Corner striking Sergeant Evans with a sledgehammer. As you know, the third question in relation to aggravated burglary is limited to security guards. It doesn’t extend to police officers. In any event, Sam Corner striking Sergeant Evans with a sledgehammer is not something that you can properly take into account against Charlotte as additional evidence in support of the prosecution case. Firstly, because only Sam Corner is charged on Count Four. None of his co-defendants have been charged with intentionally assisting or encouraging him. Secondly, Charlotte together with Fatima Zainab Rajwani, was face down on the ground somewhere else in the warehouse when Sam Corner struck APS Evans. How, in all fairness, could you rely on what happened subsequently, when she’s lying face down on the ground, as additional evidence in support of the prosecution case against her?
9 Have any of the three security guards suffered injuries from the red team which establish an intention to injure or incapacitate the security guards with sledgehammers if the need arose? Mr Shaw said that all his physical injuries were sustained outside the factory before he came inside. That’s positive evidence of the red team having no intention to injure or incapacitate him. It completely contradicts the prosecution case.
Mr Volante told you he suffered some minor injuries, a laceration to his right wrist, a blood blister to his left thumb, a scrape to his knee and some aches and pains in his muscles and shoulder. He didn’t specify when he sustained those injuries. If you watch Mr Shaw’s BWV footage from outside the factory, you might think Mr Volante almost certainly sustained the minor injuries that he did when members of the black team rescued the member of the black team who Shaw and Volante were detaining. Immediately after that, when you can see on the footage members of the black team using whips against Mr Volante. That, you may think, was when he sustained those relatively minor injuries. And Mr Luke, the only injury he mentioned was a small cut to his finger that didn’t require any medical attention.
So putting that all together, how on earth do those minor injuries suffered by Mr Volante establish an intention on the part of the members of the red team to injure or incapacitate the security guards if the need arose. I’m sorry to say this, but the prosecution case on aggravated burglary is so weak, so dangerous, and so misconceived, please do not fall for it.
If you take these nine points into account, I suggest the only way that you could possibly infer from the evidence that Charlotte, or any of her accused for that matter, when entering the factory without permission, intended to injure or incapacitate a security guard with a sledgehammer if the need arose, would be to ignore the evidence altogether and engage in impermissible speculation instead. That is why I say to you that the only just verdict on the count of aggravated burglary is one of not guilty.
Now to criminal damage. Let’s start again by looking at the indictment on count two, that on the 6th August 2024, the defendants without lawful excuse, destroyed or damaged property belonging to Elbit Systems UK Ltd, intending to destroy or damage such property or being reckless as to whether such property would be destroyed or damaged.
During Sam Corner’s evidence, a jury member sent a note to His Lordship asking the following question. “If we decide that they genuinely believe that they were performing life-saving action and were morally compelled to destroy weapons they believed were going to be used to kill civilians in what they believe to be an illegal genocide, would that amount to a lawful excuse?”
It was an excellent question, and the next day His Lordship gave an answer along the following lines: “If a defendant genuinely believed that they were performing life-saving action and was morally compelled to destroy weapons which they believe were going to be used to kill civilians in what they believe to be an illegal genocide, then that would not count as a lawful excuse, and I will give you full directions on this issue at the end of the case”.
In other words, the answer to the question was that the judge had already ruled as a matter of law, before hearing from the defendants, that they did not have a lawful excuse for damaging property belonging to Elbit Systems.
And if you turn to the judge’s legal directions, paragraph 3.8. “As I told you when you asked a question about this, if a defendant believed that they were morally justified in doing what they did to prevent what they thought was a genocide, then that would not amount to a lawful excuse. There is no evidence in this case of anything that is capable in law of amounting to a lawful excuse, so that is not something that you need to consider”.
So it boils down to this. However strange it might seem, given the facts of the case are solely for you, judges are entitled, as a matter of law in our system, to withdraw defences from the consideration of the jury if they conclude that there is no evidence to support the defence. And that is what His Lordship has done in this case. That’s why when you turn to the Route To Verdict under Count Two – criminal damage – the words lawful excuse do not appear in either of the questions.
So the questions are “Are you sure that property in Elbit’s premises was intentionally destroyed or damaged by one or more of the defendants?” and “Are you sure that the defendant either personally destroyed or damaged property or encouraged or assisted another person to do so, intending that the property be destroyed or damaged?” His Lordship, as a matter of law, has withdrawn the defence of lawful excuse from your consideration.
On Tuesday His Lordship read out the legal directions and the Route To Verdict, and he added – not in writing, but orally – that questions 2.1 and 2.2 in relation to criminal damage were “unlikely to cause you difficulty, given there was no dispute that the defendants who had given evidence at least intentionally damaged property in Elbit’s premises”.
Now, arguably Jordan Devlin is in a different position because he decided not to give evidence, but as far as criminal damage is concerned, my focus will be on Charlotte and the other four who gave evidence.
So that’s what His Lordship said to you, and Ms Heer in her closing speech, on much the same theme, told you that the defendants who had given evidence had not raised any real challenge to the charge of criminal damage. I’m sorry, but it is not right to say that the defendants who gave evidence did not raise any challenge. They did raise a challenge. They maintained that they had a lawful excuse. That was their challenge. But what’s happened is that His Lordship has withdrawn that defence as a matter of law, and that’s the true position that we find ourselves in. Their challenge was lawful excuse and the court has withdrawn that as a lawful defence. So where does that leave you, the members of the jury?
You could be forgiven for thinking that His Lordship is in fact directing you, as a matter of law, to convict Charlotte, who I’ll focus on for now, of criminal damage. But you’d be wrong to think that. His Lordship is not directing you to convict. In fact, not only is he not directing you to convict, but he’s also absolutely forbidden from doing so as a matter of law. The law is crystal clear on this point. No judge in any criminal case is allowed to direct a jury to convict any defendant of any criminal charge, whatever the evidence might be. That is the law.
Please remember that fundamental principle at all times when you retire. Please don’t misinterpret anything in His Lordship’s directions or summing up (which will follow the defence speeches) as amounting to a legal direction to convict. That would be a terrible mistake to make. I repeat, His Lordship is absolutely not directing you to convict, because he’s barred as a matter of law from doing so.
The jury has every right to be confused about this because it is confusing. You have every right to think that the distinction between withdrawing the only available defence to a criminal charge on the facts, and a direction to convict, is at best a distinction without a difference. You have every right to think that the two effectively amount to the same thing. But the fact of the matter is they are absolutely not the same thing. They are fundamentally different. Let me try and explain it.
If you look at the legal directions and the first section, headed Functions Of Judge And Jury, you’ll see it’s quite lengthy. I’m not going to go through it point by point, but I’d ask you to read it carefully when you retire. All the directions in this document are important, but I’d suggest that the directions on the function of judge and jury are particularly important in this case. The key point to summarise is that the facts, and the verdicts you return having considered the facts, are solely for you.
So nobody, not even His Lordship, can direct you as to what factual conclusions to reach. Nobody, not even His Lordship, can direct you to convict. It’s as simple as that. That’s the law. So, for the avoidance of any doubt about this, I am absolutely not asking you to disregard His Lordship’s legal directions. On the contrary, I’m asking you to follow them, in particular this section on functions of judge and jury, and remind you that nobody, not even His Lordship, can dictate to you what factual conclusions to reach in this case, nor direct you to convict the defendants of any of the charges they face.
Indeed, it was as long ago as 1670 that the independence of the jury was definitively established beyond question. William Penn and William Meade were Quakers. They were prosecuted for preaching to an unlawful assembly. It was a crime in 1670 (about 20 or 30 years after the end of the English Civil war) to have a religious assembly of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England. And William Penn and William Meade had preached to a group of more than five people on the streets of London. They stood trial at the Old Bailey before a judge and jury, and at the end of the evidence, the judge directed the jury to convict, but the jury refused to convict.
The judge was furious, and again ordered the jury to convict, stating that they would not be dismissed until they did so. The jury again refused to convict. The judge remanded the entire jury in custody for two days and ordered that they be denied all food and water. As the jurors were being taken from court to prison, William Penn, it is said, shouted out, “You are Englishmen, mind your privilege, give not away your right”, to which one member of the jury, Edward Bushel, replied, “Nor shall we ever do.” When the jury returned to court two days later, having not had any food or water for that period, the judge again ordered them to convict. The jury continued to refuse and returned a verdict of not guilty.
The judge fined the jury for contempt of court and remanded them in custody until the fines were paid. Eight jurors paid their fines, but four refused, and one of those was Edward Bushel, who then petitioned a higher court for what is called a writ of habeas corpus, which, if issued by the court, would result in his immediate release from custody. The higher court issued that writ, and Edward Bushel and the three others were released, establishing the right of a jury to return a verdict without fear of punishment from the trial judge.
This legal challenge by Edward Bushel has come to be known as Bushel’s case and is one of the most celebrated cases in British legal history. There’s a marble plaque inside the Old Bailey in central London, which reads as follows:
Putting that all together, members of the jury, you can find Charlotte and her co-defendants not guilty of criminal damage. It is a perfectly fair and proper verdict for you to return in this case. Please don’t think for one moment that you are somehow barred as a matter of law from doing so. Indeed, you should find Charlotte and her co-defendants not guilty of criminal damage. It will undoubtedly take great courage and independence, I accept, to do so. But the facts ultimately are solely for you. Please don’t forget that. And don’t worry – the good news is that we’ve moved on since 1670. There is no prospect of you being imprisoned or fined for the factual conclusions you reach or for the verdicts you return.
And that brings me, as far as criminal damage is concerned, to His Lordship’s summing up of the evidence, which will follow defence speeches. Now, I have no idea how he is going to pitch this, how he is going to approach his summary of the evidence. He might do what most judges do these days, namely sum up the evidence without making any comment, without expressing any opinion, without any edge, without any spin, without any innuendo, i.e. 100% neutrality. You may think that would be the fairest approach to take, given a trial judge is like a referee or umpire. But our system does allow judges to make comment and express opinion, even strongly, in certain circumstances. As long as the summing up remains balanced and impartial, as long as the fundamental right of every defendant to a fair trial isn’t undermined, as long as the jury is directed that you are entitled to reject any judicial opinion on the facts if you wish, as His Lordship has already directed you, and as long as any judicial opinion or comment is not wrongly expressed as a legal direction that you must follow. So if His Lordship does decide to express an opinion on the evidence, please do not, under any circumstances, misinterpret that opinion as a legal direction, because it is not.
Obviously, if you agree with the judge’s opinion, you may adopt it. But the opposite is equally true. If you don’t agree with the judge’s opinion, you may reject it. That is your right. That is your privilege, as jurors, because I repeat, you are the sole judges of the facts. Nobody, not even His Lordship, can direct you to convict in this case. So that’s what I say about criminal damage.
Count three on the indictment is Violent Disorder – “that they used or threatened unlawful violence, when present together with others, being three or more persons in total, who used or threatened unlawful violence, and their conduct taken together was such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his or her personal safety.”
Violent disorder is a serious Public Order Act charge, which involves in the simplest terms, the use or threat of unlawful violence by three or more people present together. It’s designed as a public order charge for the protection of the hypothetical bystander of reasonable firmness. So, in other words, not somebody in this case, but somebody else who happened to be present together with the relevant parties. And it’s designed for the protection of that person in relation to any unlawful violence used or threatened.
Violent disorder can cover a multitude of factual situations. It can be committed in private, it can be committed in public, and includes not just violent conduct against the person, it also includes violent conduct against property. So, the jury will have to decide a number of different matters of fact before reaching verdicts on this.
The legal directions tell us that a person is guilty of violent disorder if they are present together with two or more people, that they used or threatened unlawful violence or assisted or encouraged at least three people to do so, intending those people to use or threaten unlawful violence, and if the conduct of the group taken together would cause a person of reasonable firmness at the scene to fear for their personal safety. It’s a bit of a mouthful. But the words that I really want to focus on at this stage are the words “present together”. And it’s really important that you remember the words ‘present together’ in relation to all three questions that you have to answer in relation to this criminal offence.
Question One in the Route To Verdict asks ‘Are you sure that the defendant was one of a group of three or more persons who were together at Elbit’s premises on the 6th of August 2024?” So that group of three or more people have to be present together. And so that’s the first thing.
And in the second question those words don’t appear, but they are implicit, and I’m sure His Lordship will make that clear when he sums up the evidence. So, “Are you sure that the defendant and at least two others used or threatened unlawful violence, that is violence that was not in self-defence or defence of another?” Those three people have to be present together, intending to, or that they assisted or encouraged at least three other people to, use or threaten unlawful violence, intending those persons to do so.
And in the third question, ‘Are you sure that the conduct of the group of three or more persons—again, it’s the same group from the earlier question, so it’s that same group of at least three people present together, would have caused a person of reasonable firmness who was present at the scene to fear for their personal safety. So that’s why I stress that whoever ultimately is in the group, they’ve got to be present together. It’s absolutely essential that you remember that.
Now, why do I say that? Because you can’t take into account the conduct of two or more persons other than Charlotte when considering whether she’s guilty or not of violent disorder, unless those two or more persons were present together with her.
So when you’re deciding whether she’s guilty or not of violent disorder, the conduct has got to be her conduct, and the conduct of at least two others who were present together with her. If they were not present together with her at the relevant time, then it shouldn’t be taken into account, because it’s not properly evidenced in respect of violent disorder.
But what does “present together” mean? These are words that should be given their ordinary English meaning. What “present together” means is in the same place at the same time. Simple as that. Now, it’s entirely a matter for you—because this is, again, a matter of fact. This is not a matter of law. It’s entirely a matter for you to decide who Charlotte “was present together with” at any time after she drove the prison van through the fence and entered Elbit’s premises. For the purposes of violent disorder, it’s not just the building, it’s the premises as a whole. So it’s from the point that the van comes through the fence.
So with that in mind, let’s look at the questions as they apply to Charlotte’s case. There’s no dispute that after she drove the prison van through the fence, she was at different times present together with at least two other people within Elbit’s premises. That’s accepted. Obviously, who is in that group is going to be one of the critical issues you have to decide. But I’ll come back to that. In general terms, that isn’t an issue in dispute.
So the complication in this case is that what happened in Elbit’s premises, wasn’t a single, continuous, seamless incident, like, for example, a pub brawl or a clash between opposing football fans. What happened, particularly inside the factory, was a series of spontaneous incidents between different groups of people at different times. So determining, in respect of any defendant, who at a particular time is a member of the group of ‘three or more present together’ is not straightforward.
The reason who you decide is in that group at any given time is so important, is that it will impact what conduct you take into account when deciding whether that “hypothetical bystander of reasonable firmness” would have feared for their personal safety. This charge is a bit of a minefield actually, frequently misunderstood even by lawyers.
The prosecution say the group consists of all those who participated in the action on the night in question – that they were all acting together in furtherance of a joint plan to use or threaten violence to people and property. In other words, the group includes the red team and it includes the black team. That’s the prosecution case. It’s a matter of fact for you to decide whether that’s right or not.
I make the same points I did about aggravated burglary in relation to the plan. So without repeating everything, in relation to violent disorder, the red team was never party to any joint plan to use or threaten unlawful violence to people. There is simply no evidence from which you could reasonably conclude the existence of such a plan. In fact, all the evidence I suggest you have on this issue is to the contrary. Consequently, it would be wholly unfair and improper, I suggest to you, to take into account any use or threat of unlawful violence by the black team outside the building as evidence for the purposes of violent disorder against the red team. The red team wasn’t even present together with the black team when, for instance, Nigel Shaw was assaulted by members of the black team outside the factory. It was some considerable distance away, around the corner and out of sight. The red team knew nothing about the assault on Shaw. How could it possibly be right to hold that against Charlotte for the purposes of violent disorder?
In relation to violent disorder your starting point should be that the group of three or more persons is strictly confined to the red team. That’s the only fair and proper factual position to take in this case.
But the next question is “Are you sure that the defendant and at least two others used or threatened unlawful violence, that is, violence that was not in self-defence or defence of another, intending to do so, or that they assisted or encouraged at least three other people to use or threaten unlawful violence, intending those persons to do so?”
I’ve already stressed the importance of the words ‘present together’, which do not expressly appear there, but implicitly do. The importance in relation to this question is this. No defendant can be convicted of violent disorder unless they used, threatened, intentionally assisted, or intentionally encouraged unlawful violence. In other words, violence not in self-defence or defence of another. That’s the first point. Furthermore, no defendant can be convicted of violent disorder unless they were present together with at least two others who also used threatened, intentionally assisted or intentionally encouraged unlawful violence. That’s the basic foundations of the charge.
So it means that you will need to decide precisely what unlawful violence—used, threatened, assisted or encouraged—can be laid at the door of each defendant. Only then can you to decide what overall conduct to take into account when applying that hypothetical bystander test. That’s the only way – for each person you have to go through that exercise. What did this person use, threaten, assist, or encourage?
Finally, the third ‘hypothetical bystander’ question. This isn’t easy because again, you’ve got to put yourselves in the shoes of the hypothetical bystander of reasonable firmness in deciding what the answer to the question should be. And you’ve got to answer it on a defendant-by-defendant basis. And obviously the answer to it will depend on who’s in the group and what conduct you’re taking into account, as a matter of fact.
Going back to my earlier point, it’s not like a pub brawl or a clash between opposing football fans who are all being indiscriminately attacked, or attacking each other. Because if it kicks off in a pub, you might well fear for your personal safety if you’re kind of parachuted in at that particular point. Likewise, the clash between opposing football fans. But in this case, because of the nature of what happens inside that factory, it’s important to bear in mind that the hypothetical bystander is not somebody who just falls out of the sky and is simply present to watch the prosecution’s favourite selection of individual episodes inside the factory from the vantage point of the security guards and their body-worn cameras, and ignore all those other episodes that take place, that paint a totally different picture. That wouldn’t be a fair way to approach the hypothetical bystander.
The hypothetical bystander is going to see everything happening inside that factory, not just what the prosecution wants them to see. Let me point out a few examples. The hypothetical bystander would see that there were three burly male security guards and six young people dressed in red, four of whom were relatively small young women, present inside the factory. They’d see that one of those security guards, namely Angelo Volante, putting it as neutrally as I can, was aggressive, if not violent, towards those in red. They’d see that a number of the women in red had real trouble holding the sledgehammers, let alone swinging them when damaging property, because they were heavy. They’d see that several of the individual confrontations taking place inside the factory never became physical and merely involved lots of shouting and/or swearing.
The hypothetical bystander would see one of the men in red, Mr Devlin, unarmed, trying to de-escalate the situation over time, and get one of the security guards, namely Mr Volante, who was armed with a sledgehammer, to calm down and leave. They’d see that most of those in red were single-mindedly focused on damaging as much property as possible, and were not a threat or a danger to them. The hypothetical bystander would see that although the people in red were on occasion armed with sledgehammers or crowbars, they were not in fact using them as weapons of offence against the security guard.
The list goes on. This is just a selection of things that don’t neatly fit in to how the prosecution says this incident inside the factory for those 15, 20 minutes, was unfolding. I hope you get the point. You have to decide who’s in the group and what unlawful conduct can properly be attributed to that group before you apply the hypothetical bystander test.
And whatever you do, please do not hold the conduct of Mr Volante when he was assaulting Jordan Devlin, or screaming at Fatema Zainab, against the defendants. That conduct in isolation may have led the hypothetical bystander to fear for their safety, but that can’t be laid at the door of the defendants.
Before I turn to the prosecution’s evidence I want to make some observations generally about the evidence of the three security guards, in relation to violent disorder.
I’ll be brief about Mr Shaw, because as you know, he accepted in cross-examination that he had no physical contact of any kind with anyone wearing red inside the factory. He wasn’t struck by anyone with a weapon inside the factory. His physical injuries were sustained outside the factory before he came inside. As far as the red team and violent disorder is concerned, Mr Shaw gave no evidence in support of the prosecution case. On the contrary, his evidence suggests none of the red team are guilty of violent disorder, because none of them used or threatened unlawful violence against him. So his evidence is of huge assistance to the defence, in fact, as far as what happened inside the factory is concerned.
I’ve got a bit more to say about Mr Volante, and I have to say, on Tuesday when Ms Heer was summarising the position in relation to Mr Volante, I was stunned about how she addressed you on him, because the man she described in such glowing terms was neither the man who gave evidence in this trial, nor the man who you see in that footage.
Let’s be clear, Mr Volante is the man who assaulted Jordan Devlin twice with a sledgehammer, clearly injuring him in the process. Mr Volante is the man who made no mention in his witness statement of 7th August about that, because, he says, he forgot. Mr Volante is the man who also kicked Jordan Devlin. The still, you’ll remember, from Camera 21.
He is also the man who ran into the factory with a whip that he’d confiscated from a member of the black team. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he leave the whip wherever he left the axe that he had also confiscated? And in relation to that whip, why did he make no mention of bringing the whip into the factory in that same witness statement the next day – 7th August. He told the jury that he forgot. There was a lot to remember, he said.
Why was he forgetting to include all the things he did, which he knew perfectly well would paint him in a bad light? Mr Volante is the man who was constantly seeking to escalate matters inside the factory, as opposed to de-escalate. Mr Volante was the man who screamed at the very top of his voice, with his face contorted, at Charlotte and Fatima Zainab. I described this when cross-examining Mr Luke as Mr Volante’s Incredible Hulk moment. Apologies if any of you thought that was a bad joke. But watch the footage. Look at his face.
Ms. Heer described that same episode on Tuesday to you as memorable. I thought that was a rather strange choice of words to describe the way that Mr Volante was behaving. But whatever conclusions you draw about this man, to suggest as Ms Heer did on Tuesday, that the only people prior to the arrival of the police who had force used or threatened against them were the security guards, is I’m afraid, wholly inconsistent with the footage in this case, wholly inconsistent.
And what about Mr Luke? Well I’ll be brief, because—I know it was a long time ago, but with all due respect to him, his evidence was so thoroughly confused and all over the place. He insisted that he had put his BWV camera on when he first entered the warehouse, even though we now know that he clearly did not. When inconsistencies between his evidence and the footage were pointed out to him, and he admitted getting mixed up about the order of events and using the wrong words, he also admitted mistakenly saying in his witness statement that he disarmed one of the women. I’m going to leave it beyond this. I anticipate that other defence counsel will have more to say about Mr Luke, but his evidence was just really all over the place.
Now let me turn to Charlotte and her actions inside the factory, starting with ‘unlawful violence to property’. I’ll deal with this very quickly. Obviously, it will depend on your verdict on count two. If you’ve found Charlotte not guilty of criminal damage, then that will mean she did not use unlawful violence against property. If you found her guilty of criminal damage, then that will mean that she did use unlawful violence against property, and you will take that violence into account, together with any other violence you find in respect of her and the other members of the ‘group of three or more’, when you apply the hypothetical bystander test.
What about unlawful violence against the person? There are two matters that the Crown alleges against Charlotte in relation to unlawful violence against the person. The first is that she used a whip on Mr Volante, and the second is that she used a whip on Mr Luke.
As far as Mr Volante is concerned and the alleged use of a whip against him, there’s no CCTV or BWV footage of Charlotte hitting him with a whip. Mr Volante said it happened in the area of that alcove. And even more important than the fact that there’s no footage of it, Ms Heer didn’t put it to Charlotte in cross-examination. So how are you supposed to conclude, so that you are sure, that Charlotte hit Mr. Volante with a whip, when the prosecution, it seems, isn’t sure about it, because it was never put to her when she gave evidence?
What about the whip on Mr. Luke? You’ve seen the footage on multiple occasions, and you can watch it as many times as you want when you retire. There is some very brief body-worn footage of Charlotte holding a whip in front of her, whilst Ms Kamio and Mr Luke are tussling over a sledgehammer, both not letting go. Ms Heer said to you that if you look carefully, you see Charlotte whip Mr. Luke twice. That was what was suggested. Well, I dispute you can see that. You’re going to have to resolve that issue.
Charlotte told you that she was half-heartedly waving the whip towards Mr Luke – a pathetic deterrent – when he grabbed hold of it and she let go of it. She denied striking him. She accepted that she might have hit the whip on the ground, but she denies hitting him with it. Mr Luke told you that a female tried to hit him with a whip, but he caught it in his hand, and he later said he wasn’t actually sure if he grabbed it or not. Obviously, the jury will have to look at the footage to resolve this. But taking it all together, how can you be sure that she hit Mr Luke or tried to hit Mr Luke with the whip? I suggest it’s far from clear. You may think it’s as likely or more likely, that that Charlotte was simply holding the whip in front of her, waving it around, maybe hitting the ground with it, all because she was worried about Leona Kamio getting harmed and didn’t know what else to do. Seconds later, the whip is no longer in her hand, and she’s standing there with a sledgehammer. All of this happens in just a few seconds.
So that’s the allegation of use of unlawful violence against her. But what about the threat of unlawful violence? I suggest she did nothing that amounted to a threat of unlawful violence. Just holding a sledgehammer for a few seconds during the tussle between Mr Luke and Ms Kamio, is not threatening Mr Luke in any way.
So that’s what’s alleged against her individually, but what about her ‘intentionally assisting or encouraging others’ on the red team to use or threaten unlawful violence? Well, there’s nothing actually alleged against her about this. There’s a very broad brush approach being taken as far as secondary participation in violent disorder is concerned, in the sense that each of the defendants was intentionally assisting or encouraging the others, and that’s really how it was put.
This is a serious criminal charge, and you’re going to have to consider it carefully, and identify what facts to consider when assessing whether the conduct of the group of three or more meets the hypothetical bystander test. You can’t deal with vague stuff here. You’ve got to make specific factual decisions. And it’s only on the basis of those specific factual decisions that you can answer the third question, the hypothetical bystander question that you have in your Route To Verdict.
One final point on this. Any use or threat of unlawful violence that occurred after Charlotte was face down on the ground shouldn’t be included in the conduct of the group for the purposes of questions 3.2 and 3.3. It’s an obvious point, isn’t it? It would be really unfair and improper. How is she criminally responsible for what other people are doing in other parts of the warehouse once she gets onto the ground? That is the fair, factual approach for you to take in this case. She cannot be held criminally responsible for whatever happens after that point.
Even if you take together the use or threat of unlawful violence by other members of the group present together with Charlotte at the scene, I suggest the hypothetical bystander would not have feared for their personal safety. This was not, I repeat, like a pub brawl, or a fight between opposing football fans, an indiscriminate free-for-all, which might well cause fear in the hypothetical bystander. This was very different from that. And if you look at it in that way, the questions will drive you, in Charlotte’s case, to return a verdict of not guilty on violent disorder.
I’ll deal with two brief topics before my concluding remarks.
First, the short GoPro video played to you, of Charlotte and Fatima Zainab laughing when they’re lying on the ground. One of them says “we broke into the most secure Elbit factory”, and the other says “You’ve been Pal-Actioned”. Firstly, remember the obvious point when you watch this, that they’d been on the ground for some time. They didn’t see what was happening elsewhere in that warehouse, and you need to bear that in mind.
When Charlotte gave evidence, she acknowledged that this footage did not look great, and it felt like that moment when you giggle at a funeral. That’s a pretty good description, because it was a bit silly and childish, quite frankly, in the circumstances. But she explained they were shaking at the time. They were frightened, and they just did something silly and stupid to calm themselves down. I appreciate it doesn’t do either of them any favours, and you are entitled to take it into account. But you may feel that ultimately it is of little help when deciding the three serious charges that they face and not really an important piece of evidence in the round. But that’s a matter of fact entirely for you.
The final issue is arrest and interview. After her arrest, Charlotte was taken to a police station, and in custody, before her first interview, she was further arrested on suspicion of having committed a terrorist offence. I suggest it’s another example of prosecutorial overkill, in this case by the police. She was never charged with a terrorist offence. Before her first interview, she had a private consultation with a solicitor who advised her to go ‘no comment’ to all the questions she was asked in interview, and instead to serve a brief prepared statement. She followed that advice.
So she’d been in custody for three days before her first interview. At the beginning of each interview, she was cautioned – “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.” Her written statement is in the agreed facts – not in its entirety as some of it is ‘not relevant’ to this case.
“At no point did I use violence, serious or otherwise, against another person. I did not intend that violence should be used at any point. I strongly believe in non-violence, and I’m committed to this in all aspects of my professional and personal life. At no point did I see anyone other than security guards use violence against any other person. I did not carry any weapons. Nobody was carrying any type of incapacitant spray. No such spray was used other than by the police who used it against me when they entered the building. I did not see anyone fire fireworks towards security guards or police. I did not resist arrest. When I was told by security guards to get on the floor, I did so”. And then there’s a reference to a telephone number and a booking for the campsite. In evidence we also heard, although it’s not in here, that the first line of the prepared statement actually said, “I am not a terrorist”, because at that stage, she’d just been arrested in relation to that. She made no other comment to all questions.
There is a lengthy direction from the judge how to approach this, but I’ll try and boil it down to a couple of sentences. If you’re satisfied about certain preconditions which are set out in the document and you conclude that it’s right and proper to do so, you may take into account the fact that Charlotte did not mention when questioned by the police two facts on which she now relies, as additional support for the prosecution case. And those two facts are – one, that she did not expect the security guards to intervene, and two, that she did not know the black team would be in possession of whips or axes. So those are the only two facts the prosecution is relying upon in respect of her not having mentioned them in interview.
I say there are five reasons why you should not draw any adverse, any negative inference against Charlotte for the fact that she didn’t mention those two facts:
- In general, the failure to answer questions and interview on a particular topic does not prove guilt or innocence. Some defendants who are guilty answer questions in interview. Some don’t. Some defendants who are innocent answer questions in interview. Some don’t. It is illogical to conclude that the issue of whether or not you answer no comment is somehow indicative of guilt or not. It simply isn’t. It’s too broad a conclusion to reach in a situation like this.
- Charlotte was advised by her solicitor to go no comment. The prosecution is right – she could have rejected that advice. She is an adult with mental capacity. She could have answered questions anyway. But why would someone who has never been arrested before reject the advice of an experienced legal professional who is there to advise her in these circumstances? It would be mad to do that, wouldn’t it? If any of you or any of your loved ones ever had the misfortune to get arrested and were advised by a solicitor, having no experience at the police station at all, to go no comment in an interview, would you really reject that advice and answer questions anyway? Of course not.
- Charlotte told you she was in a complete state after being arrested on suspicion of having committed a terrorist offence. She was shocked and confused. She didn’t remember a lot about what had happened in the factory. She described it as the craziest 20 minutes of her life. She needed to watch the footage to get any sense of what was going on. She had to call an appropriate adult at one point because she couldn’t stop crying. An appropriate adult is somebody who the police call, for example, when a child is in a police station or someone who’s got mental health issues. That’s what was going on here at the time. She told you she couldn’t have given a coherent answer even if she wanted to, whilst in custody. So are you really going to hold her silence, her failure to mention those two facts, against her, given that was what was going on?
- Charlotte was not a professional criminal playing the system, hiding behind the right to silence so she could ambush the prosecution at trial. She knew what she had done and why she had done it. She participated in an action to damage property belonging to an Israeli arms company that she believed was complicit in a genocide. That was her case then, that is her case now. She’s not made anything up to suit the prosecution evidence. How could you conclude in those circumstances that the reason that she didn’t mention those two facts in interview was that she had no answer at the time or none that would stand up to scrutiny? It just doesn’t satisfy the necessary preconditions.
- Prepared statements are legal documents prepared by lawyers for defendants to sign. They’re not the entirety of any defendant’s account. That’s not the purpose of them. It would have been impossible for Charlotte’s solicitor to anticipate at that early stage what all the important factual issues were going to be at trial. How could that solicitor have known at the time that the two facts on which the prosecution now rely against Charlotte were in relation to guards intervening, and the black team having whips and axes – that those were going to be important matters that needed to be addressed in the prepared statement. Can you penalise Charlotte for what her solicitor chose to include and not include in that prepared statement? And in any event, why would Charlotte herself have been reasonably expected to mention those facts during interview?
Taking those five reasons into account, you will be driven to the conclusion, I hope, that it would not be fair and proper for you to hold the fact that Charlotte did not mention those facts against her as additional evidence in the prosecution case. And that’s why I ask you not to draw any adverse inference against her for not mentioning those two facts in the interview.
It’s been a long day and I hope you understand that this is my one and only opportunity to address you on behalf of Charlotte and there’s obviously so much to say, so I hope I haven’t taxed your patience.
Refaat Alareer was a Palestinian poet, academic and activist, who loved the writings of William Shakespeare and John Donne. He had a master’s degree from University College London and a PhD in English literature from a university in Malaysia. He lived in Gaza. He was married, he had six children. On the 6th of December 2023, he was killed, together with six other members of his extended family, in an Israeli airstrike, which has been widely reported by the international media, as having been a deliberate surgical targeting of an apartment where he was staying. Refaat Alareer was 44 years old. His poetry had been much loved and much respected in Palestine for many years. But since his killing, his poetry has gone internationally viral and will undoubtedly live on for many years to come, long after the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu and all those involved in the killing and destruction in Gaza have been forgotten.
I want to end by reciting what has become Refaat Alareer’s most famous poem, as it so beautifully encapsulates in a way that I could never replicate, not only the Palestinian tragedy, but also the hope for a better future, both of which lie at the very heart of this case. The poem is called “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer.
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
Enough is enough.
Please, find Charlotte not guilty of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. These are fair and proper verdicts to return in her case. Acquit her so that she does not have to spend another day locked up behind bars.
Set her free. End the nightmare. Please. Enough is enough. Thank you so much for listening to me.
The Filton 6 (re)trial – defendants’ stunning closing speeches
Defendants decide to dispense with their lawyers and self-represent
The April trial of the Filton 6 has had many pauses for legal arguments and decisions, which under standard reporting restrictions we are prevented from publishing, although some of the issues have leaked out in foreign independent press and even in the House of Commons.
Today the trial reached the stage of closing defence speeches, normally delivered by legal representatives, but the jury heard this morning that the five defendants facing charges of Criminal Damage have suddenly decided to dispense with the services of their lawyers and would now represent themselves. Sam Corner, who faces an additional charge of Grievous Bodily Harm With Intent is in a different position, and his legal representative Tom Wainwright will remain as the only defence lawyer in court.
CLOSING SPEECHES BELOW:
FILTON SIX TRIAL - DEFENDANTS' CLOSING SPEECHES
April 29th 2026
https://realmedia.press/filton-6-closing-speech-1/
The April trial of the Filton 6 has had many pauses for legal arguments and decisions, which under standard reporting restrictions we are prevented from publishing, although some of the issues have leaked out in foreign independent press and even in the House of Commons.
Today the trial reached the stage of closing defence speeches, normally delivered by legal representatives, but the jury heard this morning that the five defendants facing charges of Criminal Damage have suddenly decided to dispense with the services of their lawyers and would now represent themselves. Sam Corner, who faces an additional charge of Grievous Bodily Harm With Intent is in a different position, and his legal representative Tom Wainwright will remain as the only defence lawyer in court.
CLOSING SPEECHES BELOW: Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Jordan Devlin, Tom Wainwright on behalf of Sam Corner, and Zoe Rogers
Here is Charlotte Head’s powerful speech to the jury in full:
Hi. It might seem odd that I’m now speaking to you from out here, instead of in the dock – trust me it’s odd for me too. Sadly, despite how unbelievably kind and smart and wise my barristers are, after some decisions made by the court, I no longer feel like they are permitted to represent me in a way that does us all justice. So I’ve had to represent myself. This is a pretty scary situation so I apologise in advance if I seem a bit nervous.
I recently found out that it wasn’t until 1898 that a person who was charged with a crime in the UK could speak to the jury under oath during their trial. In that situation, I wouldn’t have been able to give evidence from the witness box like I did, let alone address you directly for my closing speech like I am now.
Under those conditions, me and my co-defendants would have had to sit quietly in the dock and await our fate, unable to tell you in our own words who we were and why we were sitting before you. I was unsurprised to learn that, in 1898, when the first person was allowed to answer the charges they faced from the witness box and testify to their own defence, many people, including prosecutors and judges, were worried about what would happen. Not because they feared that the defendants would lie but because they feared the jury sympathising more with normal people than the elites of the legal profession.
A long time has passed since then but it might be said that some prosecutors and judges still share that fear. A fear of the jury’s ability to be compassionate, to question the motives and integrity of the state, and to act as a barrier to the outcomes they want to achieve – namely to convict defendants. Not only that, but the government wants to get rid of juries. This isn’t a secret, politicians are openly discussing how to abolish trial by jury as we speak. They are frightened that you will listen to us, the defendants, when we talk to you and afraid of the power you hold as a jury. It’s entirely possible you may be one of the last juries to get to make decisions in a case like this before even that right is taken away from ordinary people.
Despite how it may (or may not) appear, I am not a confident person. Like most people, I find it difficult and uncomfortable to talk about the things those who know me say are my good qualities. In that regard, self-representing is extremely difficult for me so I will try to stick to the facts. Miss Heer [Deanna Heer KC, Crown prosecutor] said to you in her closing speech that, because we entered not guilty pleas, none of us were willing to “take responsibility for our actions”, but that’s not true. As she herself pointed out, I have said on multiple occasions that I dismantled weapons in the Elbit factory and that I set out to do so. I didn’t enter a not guilty plea to try and deceive a jury or attempt to “get away with” anything. I did so because I believed I was legally justified in doing what I did at the Elbit site and because, in my opinion, the narrow approach to the definition of ‘criminal damage’ misses one key thing: context. So that’s what I’m going to attempt to summarise for you now.
I was raised to believe that kindness and empathy were incredibly important. I was taught to support those around me and, as a pretty sensitive child, was always deeply affected when I saw others suffering. You heard in evidence that, just after I turned 20, I went to volunteer in the refugee camp in Calais. I don’t know what I was expecting but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer level of pain and needless suffering I saw there. I met people from all over the world, most of whom were seeking safety having fled conflict in their own countries. As volunteers, we tried to provide people with clothes, food, shelter – the basics to maintain even a shred of dignity, only to watch it routinely get taken away or blocked by the French police. When people got sick, we transported them to a clinic for the homeless because the main hospital often refused to treat refugees. When more and more people needed medical attention due to injuries sustained by the police, we started documenting these human rights abuses that were taking place on a daily basis. In the article Mr Menon [lead defence counsel, Rajiv Menon KC] showed you, I laid out some examples including chemical agents being sprayed into the mouths of refugees and children being kicked in the head while they were lying on the floor. I mentioned a 15 year old who was blinded by a rubber bullet shot at his head by the French riot police. I didn’t mention that I saw it happen and that I watched his friends rush his bloodied body into a volunteer’s car because ambulances routinely refused to transport refugees needing emergency care.
I was young, naive and not politically aware in any way when I arrived in Calais but how could events like this have anything but the most profound impact on me? How could it not shape the person I was becoming? Fast forward several years. In October 2023, events unfolded, events which have been deemed irrelevant to this case. Regardless, we all know what events occurred and, when they did, I had an excruciating sense of déjà vu. In Calais, I knew that it was money from the British government that was funding the state violence I was witnessing. It was British money that maimed a 15 year old child and left him for dead before my eyes. And regarding the events in late 2023, I was aware of the British complicity in housing weapons manufacturers on our soil, capable of inflicting the same devastation I had witnessed but on an exponential scale. So when I saw a genocide unfolding on my phone, livestreamed to us every day, I couldn’t sit back and do nothing when I knew that our government was once again directly involved.
So I went on the local marches in Cardiff – and the bombs kept falling. I went on the national demos in London – and cities and people were still being reduced to dust. My mental health plummeted watching what was happening and feeling helpless to stop it. As much as it felt necessary to do more, it was also somewhat self-serving because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t feel like I’d done everything I could. So I moved back to London, got a job at a domestic abuse charity and tried to work out what other avenues were possible to try to stop what was happening in Gaza. I wrote to my MP, someone I knew to be sympathetic to the cause, and received only an automated response.
Then I discovered the pro-Palestine camp in Hackney, a camp set up on ground protected in the by-laws specifically for protesting. A camp that was trying to get the council to divest its pension funds from weapons manufacturers like Elbit and other complicit companies. I spent 2 months sleeping on the street at the camp by night and going to my job in the day. We stood on the pavement and encouraged people to sign our petition. We ran workshops to help inform the local community about how their council taxes were funding the horrors we were all seeing on our screens. We worked and worked to put together a proposal to help show the pension committee how feasible divestment was. And on the day of the deputation, after so much effort, the committee chairman pulled out a pre-printed statement that effectively told us that everything we’d done was pointless and that they weren’t going to listen to ordinary people like us. That we could never line the politicians’ pockets like these corporations could so our opinions were irrelevant.
Now, my motivations for joining Palestine Action are also not considered relevant evidence in this case but I can tell you that I joined during my time at the Hackney camp. I can tell you I signed up to a training day after months of campaigning and pleading and asking those in power to stop abetting Israel and housing companies like Elbit. And I can tell you that it felt like I had no other choice. No other options available because we’d tried them all. I can tell you that I signed up to do an action with Palestine Action, a group that has been trying to end British complicity in war crimes since 2020. That 4 Elbit sites have been permanently shut down by its direct actions, 4 sites connected to Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer that produces 85% of the Israeli military’s drones and land-based equipment.
When I was on the stand, I was asked why direct action is necessary and I told you that it’s because the government doesn’t listen when people like you and me “ask nicely”. They have too much invested, both politically and financially, to act on a moral basis. We tried “asking nicely” and playing by their rules and they flat out ignored us. I don’t believe that wanting to stop human suffering, to stop tens of thousands of innocent people being killed is a fringe belief. I believe it is a commonly held view that underpins what it means to live in a just and humane society. I don’t agree that just because something is deemed incorrect by those in power at this point in history means that it is the wrong thing to do. Slavery used to be legal. The apartheid in South Africa was deemed legal. Myriad evils have been legal at one point or another – but that does not make them justified.
During her closing speech, Miss Heer highlighted the sheer amount of character evidence you’ve heard in our defence cases and you might wonder, considering this, why we’ve been relatively quiet on our motivations for joining Palestine Action or signing up to the action at Filton factory? You might also wonder where, in all of this, is Elbit Systems? Where are the three security guards, who intimidated, threatened and assaulted us? Where is the member of Elbit security who initially decided what footage was relevant? Where is Witness Alpha? Why has no witness from Elbit been called to explain the impact of the action on the functioning of damaged drones and other weapons? Why is there no precise inventory of what was damaged or destroyed? You might feel it’s because they don’t want to highlight the weapons they’re making on British soil or that the narrative spun by the prosecution is incorrect. You might consider the contrast between Elbit Systems on one hand and me and my co-defendants on the other and wonder which one has been more open, honest and human with you.
So now I ask you, the jury, to remember the power you hold. Your fundamental right as jurors to decide the facts has been celebrated in the UK for centuries. Back in 1670, there was a case that definitively established the right of jury independence. Two Quakers, named William Penn and William Mead, were prosecuted for “preaching to an unlawful assembly”, which at that point boiled down to speaking to a group of more than 5 people in a way that displeased the Church of England. As Quakers, Penn and Mead had done just that and they were put on trial at the Old Bailey. At the end of the trial, the judge directed the jury to convict the defendants but the jury refused. Furious, the judge directed the jury again to convict, saying they would not be dismissed until they did, but again they refused to convict. The judge then remanded the entire jury to custody for 2 days and ordered they be denied food and water. One of the defendants apparently shouted to the jury as they were led to prison, “you are Englishmen, mind your privilege, give not away your right”, to which one of them, Edward Bushel, replied “nor shall we ever do”. After 2 days in prison, the judge again ordered the jury to convict the defendants and they again refused, returning a not guilty verdict. As a result, the judge fined the jury for contempt of court and remanded them in custody again until they paid the fines. 8 paid, 4 refused, including Bushel, who then petitioned the high court to release himself and his fellow jurors. The high court agreed, the jurors were released and the fundamental right of jury independence was established, protecting the right of a jury to return a verdict without fear of punishment. It is one of the most celebrated cases in British – and global – legal history.
So, all things considered, I ask you to hear the evidence we’ve been able to give you, hear what we’ve told you. 6 normal people speaking to 12 normal people, and to make your decisions with that in mind. Yes, some of that evidence speaks to our character, but it also speaks to the context that I mentioned at the start of my speech, context that even now I’m not allowed to fully explain to you.
When I was on the stand, I was asked if I had dismantled quadcopter drones, battle-simulators and other military equipment. And I said that I did, and that I did it whole-heartedly believing that I had a lawful excuse to do so. That belief is a fact, it’s what I believed at the time, largely thanks to the many, many previous Palestine Action trials about actions just like this one, where the jury returned a not guilty verdict on charges of criminal damage. In her closing speech, Miss Heer implied that she didn’t need to cross-examine us closely about criminal damage because it wasn’t necessary – but you may think it was because she didn’t want you to hear more detail about the weapons that we dismantled and what those weapons do. You might wonder if the reason Miss Heer didn’t cross examine me at all is because she didn’t want me to reiterate that I believed I had a lawful excuse.
There’s nothing more I can say to you than that. We may have acted as a group but I made the decision to partake as an individual because of what I believed, and each of you has an individual responsibility to make the decision you believe is right as a member of this jury. Your decision is yours alone. Regardless of the outcome of this trial, whatever you may decide about my fate, nothing will convince me that what I did was morally wrong and that’s enough to help me sleep at night. I made a decision, based on the evidence available to me, and I did what I thought was the only right option. I hope you, as the jury, feel able and free enough to do the same.
—
Ms Head’s defence counsel Rajiv Menon KC watched from the public gallery as she delivered her speech.
The next self-represented speech was from Ms Leona Kamio:
Before starting, I want to reiterate what Lottie said – I didn’t fire my barrister because they’re not good, they’re amazing, and I couldn’t feel better represented by the legal team. But I think it’s really important, given the circumstances that we’re in now, that you hear from me.
It might seem strange from the outside that someone like me would do something like this. I haven’t done amazing things like Lottie or dedicated myself to activism. I’m a musician/farmer/forest school nursery teacher from Swansea, and I’ve been just living my life figuring out how to make the world a little bit less shit in my own way. I guess everyone blames their parents for everything, but I do think the way that I was raised led me to be where I am today. Credited largely to my mum, who you’ve heard a lot about and seen on the link the other day. Growing up, watching her, always going out of her way to help people as a nurse and a homeopath, treating loads of different types of people from all walks of life. She taught us – me, my brother and my little sister – how to have empathy and to imagine what it’s like to be somebody else.
I’m half-Japanese, if you hadn’t already guessed, and though my dad wasn’t always around, I grew up with a strong sense of Japanese culture. At the centre is honour – doing what is honourable, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you feel. For example, back in the day, if you were a samurai, there is a ritual known as ‘seppuku’. They would fall on their own sword if they were caught by the enemy, to restore honour or to protest injustice. I’m glad they’ve moved on from that. But how could I be raised the way that I was and watch the annihilation of human beings and do nothing? The conflict of going to work, playing and teaching young children, then going home to watch videos of similar children lose everything that makes them feel safe, is what compelled me to act in defence of those children.
You have heard a statement from Cosmo’s mum. Even though he was only three when I looked after him he’s the coolest dude that I know. He’s gentle, considerate and loves being silly – he is the centre of his mum’s world. Every one of the kids that I looked after was the centre of someone’s world – their mum, their dad, their grandparents – and to imagine what it would be like for any of them with what was happening in Palestine it literally broke me. I was sick of crying on my bed, witnessing massacres and feeling helpless. And that was the moment that I signed up to Palestine Action.
In the prosecution speech, you were told to think about the many defendants that appear before the criminal courts in this country. But you’re not here judging them, nor are you responsible for the criminal justice system, where some people are prosecuted and some people are in the Epstein files walking around free. You’re here to judge us, to decide whether I go back to prison or not.
The prosecutor told you that if you didn’t convict me, the law would be incapable of providing any protection to anyone. I don’t understand how anyone could say that in the context of this case, unless they don’t see Palestinians as human beings.
The prosecution’s whole case against us has been quite disingenuous and contradictory. The prosecutor told you yesterday that their case has just been all about damage, and it doesn’t matter who we are or why we did what we did. But many parts of the evidence that they presented weren’t about damage at all. They were about trying to discredit us as people. We spent about a day going through the sequence of events, though it felt like much longer to all of us, but how much of it was actually relevant to the issue of damage? Why did you need to know that I may have been hungover after a party? Did the homeopathy messages from my mum help you work out whether we damaged anything? And of course the video of Fatema Zainab and Lottie laughing, when they had no idea of what had just happened to Sergeant Evans. Was that there to help you work out whether we damaged anything? Obviously not. It was there to convince you that we’re bad people.
While these moments have been quietly drip-fed through the case, on the surface the prosecutor accepts that we’re people of good character. The most disingenuous part of the prosecution case has been the allegations of me intimidating security guards and resisting arrest. I am not charged with threatening anyone or resisting arrest. So if the prosecution were really so sure of their case, then they would say it, and prosecute me.
The first thing that you might have noticed about the prosecution case is that they didn’t call a single security guard to give evidence. The prosecutor asked you to see things from Volante’s perspective [described in evidence as the most violent of the Elbit security guards], and you could have. She chose not to call him or any security guard to actually give evidence, because they know that they were the ones intimidating us. And if that wasn’t true, they would have called them to the stand.
The truth is that the security guards, like Elbit itself, have been shielded and sheltered by the state.
If this was a shop that we’d broken into, which I would never do by the way, then you’d expect the owner to come to court. You’d expect him to list all of the items that were damaged, and describe the impact it’s had on his business. But where is Elbit? You’ve heard a very detailed and very boring inventory of the tools we brought to dismantle the weapons. You even have – behind Tab 10 – pictures with information like the brand and the weight and the material of every single tool. So where is that information about the weapons that we dismantled? If this case is supposedly only about damage, then where is the inventory?
And I think that brings me to the CCTV. Everything that we’ve heard about the CCTV system came second-hand from PC Sarah Grant. Once again, the prosecution did not want to put an Elbit Systems employee in front of you to answer for themselves. They know that the explanation of why there is missing footage doesn’t make sense. The low frame rate cannot explain the missing footage. You’ve seen it. We spent way longer than a minute in that alcove. No matter how low the frame rate was, it’s impossible that nobody was pictured on that camera, where Volante was being incredibly violent. Coincidentally, we don’t have any body-worn footage from the alcove either. We also don’t have CCTV of the area where Luke [another Elbit guard] had Lottie screaming on the floor, or body-worn. Or when Mr. Volante hit Jordan in the neck with a sledgehammer – you only saw that because it’s captured on police body-worn.
PC Phoebe Webber accepted that there were CCTV cameras that covered all of these areas, and we know that security all had body-worn cameras. Sarah Grant accepted that someone would have to set the frame rates, but of course, Witness Alpha [described as a senior Elbit employee whose identity has been withheld from defence lawyers] , who hasn’t been here at all, couldn’t remember the password to access the settings. Could anyone really believe that a multi-million pound weapons and technology company that specializes in surveillance drones didn’t have a CCTV system that worked?
The prosecution said yesterday that I was resisting arrest, but I’ve already explained that I was screaming in pain and fear, and I think that’s pretty clear from the footage. She told you incorrectly that my attitude towards the police is due to a conversation that I had with my mum when I was nine. In that conversation, my mum taught me that if I am afraid of a man, I should not show weakness. I should make myself loud. My distrust of the police comes from when a policeman beat my auntie up, before I was born. I don’t know what experiences others have had with the police, but different communities have different experiences with them. That just means that some of us are more afraid of them than others. It doesn’t mean that I was resisting arrest, because that would be stupid of me when Palestine Action told us over and over again not to resist arrest. And as I said in my evidence, when I said I’m complying now, I meant that a minute ago I was mid-smash, which obviously isn’t complying. When I say not complying, I mean that the six of us chose not to sit by and do nothing.
We are all very different people with very different upbringings, personalities, interests, careers and ambitions, but we are all compassionate nerds. I didn’t know any of them before this, but going through this together, we’re bonded for life, even if they don’t want to be. Somehow, being in prison, not getting proper sleep or allowed a shower or fresh air, we have kept each other sane enough to get through this. And I’ve gotten to know each of the extraordinary humans that sit in the dock over there. And whatever happens to us, I will be forever proud and grateful they are by my side.
People always ask me, do you regret it? Although I am terrified of the consequences, because I’m not a psychopath, I will never regret trying to save a child’s life. The prosecutor said we are all born with good character, and I’ve seen this first-hand working with children. Every day I would have conversations with these tiny, wonderful human beings and I’d simplify things in a way that they could understand. I got to understand that a child’s view of the world is profoundly simple – what is right and what is wrong.
This is not everything I’d like to tell you but I’m so scared of the consequences of saying something that I’m not permitted to that I can only hope that this is enough.
Yesterday the prosecutors said that we refuse to take responsibility. That’s not true. The truth is that our system puts the power in the hands of ordinary people to decide whether we’re guilty or not. For those of us that aren’t in power, we go through our lives feeling powerless and like we don’t have a choice sometimes. But today, you are the people in power and you are the ones with the choice. Regardless of who the state decides to protect, I have faith in people. And that’s why I am standing in front of you. Thank you.
Fatema Zainab Rajwani also represented herself, making the following speech:
Good morning, members of the jury. You have heard from me once already. I apologise if I seem a bit nervous. This is my first time doing anything like this. It is a bit of a nerve-wracking situation. As many of you already know, this type of closing speech is usually given by a defence barrister who is a legal expert. And again just to reiterate what Lottie and Ellie (Charlotte and Leona) have already said, I did not fire my barrister. I simply wanted to speak to you as an ordinary person, and I wanted to take this chance to speak to you, not in legal terms or arguments, but as an everyday person just like you.
My name is Fatema Zainab Rajwani. I am 21 years old. I have no previous convictions or cautions to my name. I was born in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, which is just on the coast of East Africa, to a British Asian mother and an African Asian father. I spent my childhood there and I spent my childhood moving between London and Tanzania. I interacted with almost everyone from all walks of life. It taught me kindness, compassion and acceptance regardless of difference, regardless of what someone looked like or where they came from. It taught me that everyone, no matter who they are, deserves dignity and safety and respect – values that I still try to live my life by. It is these values I see enshrined into this country that has become my home. This country which has a beautiful, rich history of love and solidarity and descent, of women, queer people, and people of colour who fought bravely for those rights, so that people like us, people like me, be allowed to live, to work, to study, and most importantly, to have a right to a fair trial by a jury of our peers – by a jury of my peers in fact, as Mr. Wainwright just said, women weren’t even allowed to serve on juries until post-1920s, when the suffragettes fought for our right to be on a jury. And not until later than that, when we could be on a jury without restrictions that depended on property. And people of colour weren’t even allowed onto a jury until 1969, so I would have been lost on both counts to be able to judge someone of their character and of a crime that they had been accused of.
If not for people like them, two-thirds of the prosecution would not even be allowed to present their case to you – two thirds of it! And you are able to serve on this jury because people dared to imagine a better world. People believed that they could change it for the better, despite any opposition. And it is because of these people that have fought for us that we have one of the best, one of the most celebrated legal systems in the world. Because of our juries – because they are diverse and include 12 ordinary people from all walks of life who bring together their experience, their humanity, their compassion, to look at the facts of this case – any case – and judge them, and to deliver a verdict of the facts of the case as you see them to be. And you will go out very soon to make a choice – a very important, permanent choice – that has been entrusted to you by society and by us as defendants. And it is a choice that today, tomorrow, for as long as you live, you will have to stand by, and it will remain with you forever.
Over the last few weeks, you have heard lots of evidence from the prosecution, a whole sequence of events in multiple bundles. And you also heard from us.
In my case, you have heard that I am 21 years old – that I was 19 years old when I decided to take action with Palestine Action against Elbit Systems UK – that I had just turned 20 when that prison van crashed through the shutters of Elbit’s newest research and development facility in Filton in Bristol. You have heard about the GoPro I had strapped to my helmet, I told you, to document the fact that Elbit was making these drones, these killer drones in these factories. You’ve heard me – in that witness stand – own up to disarming those drones because they were going to kill children. And I told you how I was sick of waiting for the government to dig this well for me. I used this quote that I was done waiting for someone to dig a well for me. I decided to dig the well myself. And I meant by that, instead of waiting for these weapons to stop, I went straight to the source.
You’ve heard how I was still just barely 20 when we were arrested in that factory and then re-arrested again under the Terrorism Act, and still despite not being charged with any terrorism-related offences, when we were subsequently held without communication with our families for weeks, for weeks on end at 20. I’d never lived out of home previous to that, by the way. That was the longest I’d ever gone without speaking to my mother. And then subsequently imprisoned. [Fatema took a moment to regain composure, tearing up at this time.]
The prosecution has told you that there’s no dispute about the fact that there was damage caused, but that is regardless of the fact that not a single witness from Elbit was called and you’ve heard this from other people. Not a single witness from Elbit was called to confirm that damage, to corroborate that story. Nor was an inventory produced of the damage caused. So how can you be sure? How can you be sure without any cold, hard facts that the prosecution have convinced you beyond reasonable doubt, members of the jury, that this damage, although by our own admission was caused, was really and truly criminal damage? Again, without proof of fact to even corroborate it. Where in evidence has the prosecution shown anything beyond a few disarmed weapons, some paint, and an endless tirade of increasing security violence?
The simple fact, members of the jury, is that the prosecution has failed to fulfill their burden of proof to a criminal standard. They did not even seek to adduce numbers, or cold hard facts, relying instead on an admission from us rather than their own witnesses, while simultaneously calling us irresponsible and stating that we are refusing to take accountability. You’ve heard the thinly veiled criticism from the prosecution about exercising our right to plead not guilty, and it is a right to plead not guilty. They have presented this to you as a way to put the blame on us, to say that we have refused to take responsibility for our actions. When each and every one of us has stood in that witness box, not once, multiple times, to attest to what we did within that factory, each one of us has told you that we volunteered to be accountable for our actions, that we were willing to do a high level arrestable action that would lead us right here all these months later to stand in front of you.
We knew we were going to end up here in front of you all, that we went into this action to be held accountable by you. And I’m not ashamed, I am not ashamed to stand here before you. On the contrary, it is my privilege and my honour to stand trial for disarming Israeli military drones. It is my honour to stand in front of you as someone who has told you from this stand that the belief that drives their life is simple, that to save one life is to save all of humanity.
And you are 12 ordinary people – my peers in society, who today act as the backbone of our legal system.
I do not wish to try and prove my innocence, as it is not my job to. It is the job of the Crown to provide evidence beyond any reasonable doubt (which means if you have any doubt at all, you must find us not guilty), of my guilt. And it is my inalienable right, fought for by those before me, to stand in this courtroom and ask you to really think about whether the prosecution have actually proved my guilt, or have they hidden the fact that there is no way to find any of us truly guilty, behind prosecutorial overreach?
God knows how much of our tax money poured into on-screen animations. And even though they tried to explain it, the fact that they do not even have access to all of the CCTV and body-worn. All the might of the Crown could not produce that CCTV and those body-worn cameras, from everything that happened inside that factory.
Our pleading not guilty is not a way to shed responsibility or to avoid guilt. I’m going to say that again. Our pleading not guilty is not a way to shed responsibility and is not a way to avoid guilt. It is guilt that the prosecution has made incumbent on us, despite the fact that we have yet to receive a verdict – despite the fact that they have already failed to fulfil the burden and standard of proof, and yet seek to try and convince you that our guilt is foretold, that it has already been set in stone. They have predetermined your verdict and your decision and made it for you, and in doing so have taken away from you the fact that there are still two verdicts to return, guilty and not guilty. And the choice has been entrusted to you and to you only to find true facts of this case, based on the evidence you have heard in the witness box and what the prosecution has produced or failed to produce also. Thank you.
We’ll try to bring you Zoe Rogers’ speech as soon as we can, but move on now to the final defendant Jordan Devlin who addressed the jury as follows:
KC Heer seemed to have a lot to say to me in her closing speech. [A reference to Deanna Heer KC – the prosecution Counsel]. I would firstly like to touch on some of these points. Some of the ideas she had were not put to me on the stand. This is because the prosecution know excessive force was used against me and was completely unjustified. She works hard to undermine my testimony, because it is the truth of my account that undermines the case she advances.
KC Heer told you that we take no responsibility, that we leave that to you – that is correct in law – it is for you to decide, not me. It’s for you to decide the verdicts.
But you know what? We’re here. It’s Elbit who are avoiding accountability for their actions. Where is Volante and where is Witness Alpha?
In the context of us all being born with good character, Ms Heer says that if people were acquitted on good character, the law would be incapable of providing protection to anyone. The law has already failed to protect those innocents born of good character killed by Elbit weapons.
Now KC Heer put it to you that I could see [PC]Buxton arrest Sam [Corner]. She failed to ask me if I recognized this person was the same as the one who had had me in a headlock, or if I was even looking at the arrest. This is all to suggest I knew that he was police. She calls it a fanciful explanation. Well, perhaps she’s glossed over the fact Volante [Elbit security guard] was assisting with that arrest – security guard, not police – and that is in your evidence. If she calls my account fanciful, I describe her account as desperate.
KC Heer remarked, contrary to what Mr. Devlin said, that security were entitled to use force. I’m afraid KC Heer has taken creative licence. I in fact said they do not have the right to be violent. I wouldn’t hope KC Heer asserts that Volante had the right to hit me in the face with a sledgehammer, because he did not.
Now, I’ve decided to represent myself so that I can tell you my truth, but this is my fantastic barrister, Andrew Morris, over here, still standing with me and guiding me through the whole process.
The only evidence that I damaged any property was when asked, I said, yes, I did it. And I was honoured to do so, because although it has been nice to be free since February, and despite being beaten up, I do not regret signing up for this action. Nothing Volante could have done to me would make me regret this, because the effect world events had on my mental health was hell.
You the jury have massive power in shaping the future of British protest law and British history. We did the right thing, and you do not need to explain your verdicts, you have the independence to make your own minds up about all of the facts you’ve heard. Make the right decision according to all of these facts.
You might find that there is no case to answer. The burden of standard of proof must account for the value of products damaged. Well, is it not true that the value of these products is actually deeply in negative territory? You have heard evidence of what this property is, that I’m accused of damaging. Consider what this property is and what it takes away from society.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would love to tell you so much more, and I can’t talk on these topics, and I can’t tell you why. I invite you to find a verdict of not guilty. I invite you to find that the answer to question two is no.
As mentioned at the top, Sam Corner retained his legal representative, Tom Wainwright [Garden Court Chambers], and this was Mr Wainwright’s closing speech on his behalf:
There is no dispute, as Ms Heer said in Closing, that on 6th August 2024 PS Evans was doing her job as a public servant. There is no dispute that she did not deserve to be injured. Of course you will feel sympathy for her, I’m sure everyone in this courtroom does. But, you have been directed, sympathy and emotion can play no part in your decision. And yet, Ms Heer said to you in Closing yesterday that if you decide Sam Corner may have been acting in defence of another, it will be your pleasure to acquit him. A deliberate choice of words, a cheap and cynical call to emotion and sympathy. It’s not about pleasure, it’s about reaching the right, proper and true verdict.
To get to the right, proper and true verdict, let me start at the end.
“I was protecting her”. Sam Corner’s words, right at the end of the events of 6th August 2024, the events that brought him here today, give you the clearest possible indication as to what his motivation, his sole purpose and his only intention was when he swung the sledgehammer that night, and that is really what this case is about.
I was protecting her. Four words which were barely mentioned and wholly unexplained in the prosecution speech.
- There is no dispute that he said it, it was part of PS Evans’ evidence, part of the prosecution case and unchallenged by me;
- It was obviously not something he had thought about in advance and planned to say beforehand. Because it was not part of the plan for any of this to happen beforehand.
- It was not part of the plan going into the factory for him to use the sledgehammer as a weapon and the prosecution do not suggest that it was. That has never been their case in this trial;
- It was not the plan for security guards to come in to the factory;
- It was not part of the plan for Mr Corner to be PAVA sprayed;
- It was not part of the plan for Ms Kamio to be tasered and then knelt on, causing her to scream in pain;
- It was not part of the plan for him to use the sledgehammer in this way and it never crossed his mind that he would need to so there is no reason that he would have thought up a false explanation for doing so beforehand;
- Equally obviously, this was not a false explanation that he thought up on the spur of the moment. Having been taken to the floor and handcuffed, still reeling from the effects of the PAVA spray, not having realised quite what had happened, still feeling overwhelmed and confused, I don’t think any of us would have the presence of mind in those circumstances to manufacture a lie. And that would certainly be beyond Mr Corner’s ability, you may think, having seen him give evidence. You may conclude that thinking on his feet is not his strong point. That in stressful situations he struggles to articulate let alone fabricate.
The only explanation for that evidence is that this was an instinctive, truthful and accurate explanation from him of what had just happened. It is at the very heart of this case.
We are here because in the circumstances as he believed them to be, with his senses impaired and acting on instinct, Sam Corner did what he honestly believed needed to be done in order to protect someone who he thought was being seriously injured. Working back, the level of force used tells you how seriously he believed that person was being assaulted and how urgent was the need to act. Put another way, Sam Corner would not have taken this action unless he genuinely believed that it was necessary and reasonable to do so in order to prevent serious injury.
“I was protecting her”.
Every piece of evidence you have heard, every step along the path that lead him to be on that factory floor is consistent with that explanation. None of it is consistent with the prosecution explanation, such as it is, which appears to be that Sam Corner – a lifelong pacifist who had never committed an offence in his life – got frustrated and made a deliberate decision to injure a police officer for no reason.
I’m going to go through the evidence in order:
- Sam Corner’s background and character, who he is as a person;
- The planning of this action;
- The behaviour of the security guards;
- The arrival of police;
- The swinging of the hammer;
- The aftermath.
You have heard and will hear from the other defendants in relation to Count One. I’m going to focus primarily on Count Two and the allegation of Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent as that is a count faced by Sam Corner alone. And I’m going to invite you to focus on the evidence not as if you were viewing through this CCTV or BWV, not through your eyes, but through Sam Corner’s eyes and how he perceived it.
In order to do that, you need to walk a mile in his shoes, so let’s start with Sam Corner himself and what you heard about him:
- An academic, an Oxford graduate, – a mathematician, a linguist and a philosopher. Clearly very intelligent, but also noticeably someone who excels in subjects or branches of subjects which are concerned with the theoretical, not the practical. A particular sort of intelligence. Translating languages, not using them in public to communicate. Decoding words and numbers, but not applying them. Able to absorb text in the abstract in the calm of the university library, helped by his synaesthesia, but who struggles to take in unfamiliar, fast-moving, real-world events;
- A young man who cares a great deal about people. Who gives away what little he has to help others, that’s how much he cares. Who, because he finds social situations and reading social cues difficult, worries a lot – not for himself – but worries that he might say the wrong thing and make other people uncomfortable. That’s who he is. Someone who even worries about hurting other people’s feelings, let alone the idea that he may cause someone else physical pain. A young man who was moved to act for no reason other than to prevent human suffering. To stop people suffering pain, injury and trauma, not to cause it.
- A man of good character:
- Someone who had never been arrested before. Never even been in a fight before. Described in his character references as someone who finds any form of violence abhorrent. Someone who is caring, gentle, compassionate;
- Someone who has been on marches, helped out at the university encampment, but who had never been involved in any direct action, anything like this before. Who has no experience of the reality;
- Someone who had prospects. Who had plans for the following year, to continue his education. Who, you may think, was unlikely to have used unnecessary violence for that reason too. You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that this would inevitably make things much more serious. Destroying any plans, not just for the following academic year, but for a long time after that. As he told you, he would not have joined this action if he thought there was any risk of violence. He clearly never thought that he might be arrested by counter-terrorism police or spend nearly two years in prison. The possibility of violence being any part of this action simply was not on his radar, was not who he is and was not part of the plan.
You can also take into account your own impression that you formed from seeing Sam Corner in the witness box. Softly spoken, anxious, hesitant. Not someone who is verbally articulate under pressure, but this isn’t a public speaking competition and you may conclude rigid, old-fashioned cross-examination isn’t helpful. Repeatedly asking the same questions, putting hypotheticals, criticising him for answering question literally isn’t fair. Take into account the directions that you were given in relation to Mr Corner’s autism and ADHD and make all due allowance for that, although it may be that given his memory difficulties, the main point you can take away from his evidence is how he came across.
Ms Heer says to you in closing that his presentation in the witness box was very different to his presentation in the factory. Well, yes, when he was in the witness box you didn’t have Mr Warner unexpectedly running in the door, you didn’t have Ms Gargitter waving an umbrella around and you didn’t have Ms Heer hitting him in the throat with a sledgehammer – much as she may have wanted to at certain points. [Warner and Gargitter are the other prosecution lawyers]
Of course a person reacts differently in different circumstances, but that doesn’t make you a different person. You don’t throw everything you know about someone’s character out the window. That wasn’t confidence and control, that was fear and anxiety. That wasn’t bravery, it was bravado. You can hear it in his voice that he is out of his depth, scared and concerned and he is doing what he needs to do to defend himself and others, and no more.
Ms Heer seeks to undermine his character by saying that he has declined to take responsibility for his actions. Well I imagine she says that in every trial where a defendant has had the temerity to plead Not Guilty. It doesn’t actually help you.
Actually, putting together everything you know about Sam Corner – his character, his demeanour, his personality. None of it is consistent with the prosecution case.
So let’s turn to the plan. I only need to deal with this briefly as it has only featured briefly and most, if not everything, that the defendants have told you about it hasn’t been challenged. So just three points:
- There has been no challenge to the defendants’ evidence that they were repeatedly told that security guards wouldn’t come in, that they would just call the police and leave them to it, and no challenge to the defendants’ evidence that they believed it. In fact there has been no suggestion that this isn’t what has happened in every other previous action. And so the prosecution can’t say Sam Corner didn’t believe that or even say he would be naïve to believe it, because for all we know it’s true. We certainly know that these defendants were reliant on what they were told by others, none of them having been involved in anything like this before. Particularly for Sam, who has perhaps rigid thinking and difficulty in seeing things from other people’s perspective, the chances of security guards coming into the factory would have seemed negligible, the reasoning for them doing so unfathomable;
- Know from the planning that Sam Corner agreed to wear the GoPro, so he has in mind before he goes in and while he is in that factory that everything he is doing is on film. He would be conscious of it because he is supposed to be looking for intelligence on Elbit’s activities. And as a matter of common sense, you wouldn’t unlawfully assault someone if you know that you were wearing a GoPro which was recording your every action. Even if it is being transmitted rather than recorded on the device, there is still a risk that the authorities may obtain it or intercept it or even recover it after it has been deleted. You wouldn’t do anything unless you genuinely thought it was justified. If it had crossed his mind, he would have known that using unjustified violence would not help Palestine Action’s cause. Obviously it wouldn’t, quite the opposite. It would be used against Palestine Action by those who want Elbit’s factories to continue unchallenged;
- There is no mention in the planning of a fundamental part of the prosecution case. That it was part of the plan, if detained, to shout and scream and pretend to be injured. Everything else is planned out, but not this. There was no such plan. The prosecution have just made it up to try and explain Ellie Kamio’s actions and Sam Corner’s instinctive response. To protect her.
The planning is not consistent with the prosecution case.
And then we come to what happens in the factory and when the plan goes wrong and security guards start coming into the factory. Even then, Sam Corner does not use his sledgehammer to strike or injure or incapacitate any of them. To try and get them out of the warehouse or to protect himself and others.
Even during whatever happens with Mr Luke at the start. There is obviously something happening off camera, you can hear Charlotte Head screaming. If Sam Corner had wanted to lie to you he could have said anything about what Mr Luke did at that point, but he hasn’t. He’s told you can’t remember.
Even when Mr Shaw comes in and, you can see if you pause the footage, has his umbrella raised and you can see later on when you line the footage up, raises his umbrella which causes Mr Corner to raise his sledgehammer. It’s not about how much of a threat Mr Shaw posed, Mr Shaw was in the factory and wasn’t leaving. Sam Corner couldn’t turn his back on him as he didn’t know what he’d do. Sam wanted to get on with damaging weapons and wants Mr Shaw to leave but at no stage does he even nudge him with the sledgehammer, he tried to dissuade him – “you’ve only got a fucking umbrella”. When he raises the umbrella he knocks it back down, it doesn’t appear he does so very hard as the umbrella doesn’t seem broken afterwards.
Even when Mr Luke is grabbing hold of Leona Kamio’s sledgehammer and she falls to her knees, Sam Corner doesn’t make contact with him.
Even when Mr Shaw is still refusing to leave, he says “come with me I’ll show you how you can get out”. And when he sits down Sam just leaves him alone. This is not someone who is hellbent on violence.
Even when confronted with Mr Volante actually using physical force against Jordan Devlin, Mr Corner doesn’t use physical force in response. His response is only to try and knock the sledgehammer out of Mr Volante’s hands, so he can’t cause any further injury. He was protecting Mr Devlin. And he doesn’t strike the hammer that hard, as Mr Volante keeps hold of it. Even at that stage, he had no intention, no thought to cause injury.
If he thought the security guards were fair game, why not strike them at any of those points. That’s an important part of the prosecution case in relation to PS Evans. It is put to Sam Corner that if he thought she was a security guard he thought she was fair game to be assaulted. Well if that was the case, why is that not reflected in his behaviour to the security guards beforehand. Throughout all of these confrontations, not one involved physical contact or even attempted physical contact with the security guards themselves. Why not? Because he only did what was necessary and reasonable to do so in the circumstances as he believed them to be.
Ms Heer said to you in closing, but look at it from Mr Shaw’s point of view, look at it from Mr Volante’s point of view. But you haven’t heard from any of the security guards. If it would have helped the prosecution case, the prosecution could and would have called them to give evidence. It was said in closing that Sam Corner was not acting in self-defence in relation to the security guards, but it won’t have escaped your notice that there are no counts on the Indictment relating to Mr Shaw, Mr Luke or Mr Volante. You may decide that weakens the prosecution’s stance, and actually the interactions with the security guards do not support the prosecution case.
—
And then shortly after the police arrive. Sam knew they would arrive at some point, he didn’t know it would be then. Even if he had heard Mr Luke say that police were on their way, it doesn’t make any difference.
But you take into account all the points I made with PC Buxton and view this not through BWV or CCTV but through Samuel Corner’s eyes. The alarms are going off, there is a clingy, toxic smell – enough to make PC Buxton feel sick. Imagine the impact this is having. Remember when Sam was giving evidence and he asked about a high-pitched noise in the courtroom which I don’t think anyone else could hear. Imagine being in that situation when you are that sensitive to noise. When he tells you he was overwhelmed, he was overwhelmed. And when you are overwhelmed, you don’t take in the details.
So in the three seconds between coming round the corner and the PAVA spray being deployed, two seconds of which he is looking at what’s going on with Mr Volante and Mr Devlin, of course he wouldn’t have registered a small bit of writing saying POLICE. You can see it on the footage, it’s not that big. Even if you weren’t someone who had difficulty paying attention at the best of times, even if you were focussed on PC Buxton rather than the angry, soapy, shouty man coming towards you, even then you’d still have had difficulty distinguishing between security and police. If you look at their uniforms they are very similar, down to the similar white writing in exactly the same place, in a very similar font, saying SECURITY. No doubt that’s intentional by security to make them look like police officers to the casual observer.
Even if he had seen Leona Kamio being Tasered, that wouldn’t mean he knew these were police or that she was being arrested. From Sam Corner’s point of view, having been unexpectedly confronted with several security guards, what look like more security guards run in. One of them has just struck Jordan Devlin with a hammer, knocking him down. Security seem to be escalating things, getting heavy handed.
And the next thing he knows is that he can’t see.
You have agreed facts about the effects of PAVA spray. It’s a highly effective incapacitant. It causes temporary blindness, eyes to close and tears to run. It causes severe pain and nausea. I don’t make any criticism of PC Buxton for deploying his PAVA spray, didn’t explore with him the reasons for doing so or his perception of whether it was necessary, as it’s not about that, its simply the fact that it happened which is so important in understanding what took place afterwards. There can be no doubt that this was the effect it was having on Sam Corner from hereon in. You can see it on the footage, groaning, rubbing his eyes. He told you about the all-consuming pain. Trying to force his eyes open. And so when you view events through his eyes from now on, that vision is blurred, he is confused, disorientated.
An autistic young man, in an unfamiliar place and an unfamiliar scenario. Alarms going off. Smoke in the air. PAVA in his eyes. You may remember the evidence that was read from PC Neale who arrested Charlotte Head some time later. They said that when they started to caution her they had to stop because even then due to the alarm, the smoke and the residue of the PAVA on Ms Head, they became so disorientated that they couldn’t continue. So imagine what it was like twenty minutes earlier.
And in those circumstances, having just seen Mr Volante strike Jordan Devlin, Sam Corner turns away, and when he turns back, through blurred eyes, he sees a similar looking figure in black grappling with Jordan Devlin. Did he think it was still Mr Volante? Possibly. As Sam said in evidence, he didn’t remember this even shortly afterwards, and without any real visual memory it would be difficult to piece together what had happened. He has tried his best to help you based on what he can see on the footage but he cannot help you with the detail of what was going through his mind at the time. He very genuinely cannot remember it clearly and does not want to guess. Three important points arise from this:
- It demonstrates that the prosecution’s assertion, that he didn’t mention certain things in his interview because he has made them up since, is nonsense. If Mr Corner wanted to make up an account, to lie to you, he could have said he remembered things clearly even when he didn’t. He could have said this is what he thought and this is what he intended and I remember it all. But he has rigidly stuck to the truth, the unvarnished, honest truth. The events of that night were confusing and unclear at the time, in interview and now;
- Certainly don’t hold it against him. He is being asked to describe a fast moving scene from nearly two years ago, where it is difficult to remember exactly what was in his mind at the time, what he was aware of and thought then as opposed to what he knows and thinks now having seen the video footage, having been held in prison for 20 months. For someone who feels compelled to be accurate to the point of pedantry, if he cannot remember he isn’t going to guess. He will tell you he cannot remember;
- The fact that he can’t remember doesn’t mean that you revert to the prosecution version of events. It doesn’t make their account any more true. The burden and standard of proof still falls on them to make you sure, and you decide the case on all the evidence.
So what can you see from the footage? What inferences can you draw?
Well first of all, keep an eye on the real time. For quite some time you can see that PC Buxton is on top of Mr Devlin. You can’t see how he has hold of him or what he is doing or how it may have appeared from the outside. It is a matter of a few seconds in which Sam Corner intervenes. A matter of seconds in which he has to react.
Second, despite the prosecution saying that this was an unprovoked assault, there is no count on the Indictment alleging an assault on PC Buxton, and you may decide that weakens the prosecution’s stance.
Third, what is the evidence of injury. A single contact, causing a slight, faint bruise to his leg. Despite the prosecution case being that Sam Corner was on a rampage at this point, that is the extent of what he does.
So what do we draw from that incident. Well,
– Whether he may have begun his action while PC Buxton still had hold of Jordan and pulled his punch thereafter, perhaps slowing the swing after Jordan Devlin got up, thereby explaining the lack of real injury;
– Whether he may have believed that this was the same person who had struck Jordan once and was part of the group who were now escalating matters, using unnecessary and unreasonable force;
– Whether he feared that this person would get up and continue his attack;
His actions with PC Buxton would still be in the realms of self-defence or defence of another. But most importantly throughout this incident, even when unexpected circumstances caused him to react to something that he did not foresee, anticipate or expect, his instinctive response is reasonable and proportionate to the danger as he perceived it to be. That response is not consistent with the prosecution case.
You can certainly infer (or certainly cannot reasonably exclude the likelihood) that what he is doing is to protect or try to protect Jordan. The same thing he was trying to do just a few seconds later.
—
It is against all that cumulative background that you come to the incident with PS Evans. Let me make it very clear that neither I nor Sam Corner suggest for a moment that PS Evans did anything wrong. Quite the contrary. She was doing her duty, and commendably so. Her actions, particularly in the aftermath, checking on the welfare of others including Sam himself are a testament to her character and professionalism. There was no challenge from me to any of her evidence. No questions at all. So far as I was concerned there was no reason she had to come to court to give evidence because there is no dispute about what actually happened.
Because it is not a matter of what was actually happening, but what Sam Corner believed or may have believed was happening.
You don’t view that in isolation:
- You keep in your mind that Sam’s vision is still impaired (you can see that he is still keeping his eyes closed, trying to rub them afterwards while he is being detained by PC Buxton);
- You keep in mind the sirens, the shouting, the noise, the smell; He told you, everything about the environment was overwhelming;
- You keep in mind that he has just seen a member of security strike a fellow protestor and seemingly then struggling with them on the floor. He told you he felt scared for the others at this time because he could hear and see them being assaulted;
- You keep in mind that his reactions throughout that night have not been over the top.
You then add in Leona Kamio’s screams. You can hear them yourself of course on the BWV in the cold and clinical light of the courtroom, but imagine them happening live, nearby and with everything else going on. Even PC Buxton described them as horrible screams, something that had stuck with him even two days later when he was talking about what had happened on video. You may think it is unlikely that Sam Corner had ever heard someone screaming in pain like that before.
The prosecution case is that these were all faked, this was acting by Leona Kamio, and not just that, but also that Sam Corner knew this was fake. But that only works if this was planned in advance, and despite the fact that no-one else is following this plan, despite the fact that there is no mention of it anywhere and despite the fact that afterward Leona Kamio is completely unaware of what has happened and doesn’t believe the officer when he tells her what has happened. Despite all of that, the prosecution persist in trying to satisfy you of both of those things in order to try and convince you that Sam Corner wasn’t acting in defence of another.
You look at that footage and come to your own decision about whether this is faked. You ask yourself, even if we were to think the reaction was over the top, how was Sam to know that? And you ask yourselves what does this do for the prosecution’s credibility, what does it say about their case, that it relies on such implausibilities.
Sam Corner undoubtedly honestly believed in that moment, that one of the women was being seriously injured. You may think that was a reasonable and understandable conclusion to reach in the circumstances but whether or not that was a reasonable conclusion again doesn’t matter. It is his honest perception of the events which matters.
Now Sam Corner certainly accepts that his perception of events was wrong, that he made a terrible mistake and PS Evans was not hurting anybody. But sadly that is certainly not the perception that Sam had at the time. Whether he thought it was Ms Rajwani or Ms Kamio at the time makes no difference, possibly he transposed them in his recollection, but if he was making up an account to you he would just have said he thought it was Leona Kamio.
At the time, as he told you, what he saw was consistent with a security guard attacking a small woman and causing her serious injury. He wouldn’t have gone over there otherwise. He wouldn’t have done what he did otherwise. It is the only reason why someone with no previous convictions or history of violence, who abhors violence, would take such action. And it explains why after he did what he thought was necessary and proportionate to stop the threat, he stopped. He doesn’t keep swinging, he doesn’t follow it up with kicks or punches to PS Evans or any other officer.
He was protecting her.
Whether or not you accept that Mr Corner thought it was a security officer, may not make a great deal of difference. He clearly thought that the degree of force being used was unnecessary and disproportionate and therefore unlawful. He couldn’t see how it was being caused, he could hear it in Ms Kamio’s screams, and he would have been able to tell approximately where those screams were coming from. He genuinely believed Leona or Fatema Zainab was being caused serious injury, there was no other reason why she would be screaming in that way, and no-one suggests that it was necessary for either of them to be caused serious injury for any reason by anyone.
But you may well accept that he didn’t realise this was a police officer, because if he knew this was a police officer, he always knew it would be an end to matters at that stage. He was there as an “overt”, an arrestable. Hands up, on the ground, go floppy. Passively resist, not actively attack. Jumping ahead slightly, his actions after he is arrested do not show someone trying to continue causing damage, obviously that’s over now. They show someone in pain – from the PAVA, from the chokehold and the handcuffs – and trying to make it stop.
One swing that makes contact. It’s the second swing which tells you what he was trying to achieve. Not making contact but coming down in the area where the officer had hold of Ms Kamio while she was screaming moments before. Where whatever mechanism was being used to caused injury, whatever it was he was trying to stop was taking place.
Of course you have to determine whether the degree of force used was or may have been reasonable. Again, you decide this on the circumstances as Sam Corner believed them to be. The greater the degree of force that someone believes is being used or the more serious the injury someone believes is being caused or threatened, the greater the degree of force that is allowed in response.
But although the law defines it in these strict linear steps and definitions, as set out in your Route To Verdict, the brain doesn’t work that way. You have to respond quickly, with the tools available to hand. As His Lordship directed you:
‘If you decide that what the defendant did was, in the heat of the moment when fine judgments are difficult, no more than the defendant genuinely believed was necessary, then that would be strong evidence that the force used was reasonable.’
That is exactly what Mr Corner did. As he said, “I had to act quickly and what I did appeared reasonable based on what I thought was happening”. And may he have thought that based on that perception if he hesitated it may be too late and he had to do something rather than nothing.
The Route To Verdict directs you to consider defence of another first, before determining whether Mr Corner intended to cause Grievous Bodily Harm or Actual Bodily Harm. But although it is a slightly different question, you will need to consider what level of force Sam Corner intended to use at the first stage, because that is the measure by which you judge whether his response was or may have been reasonable. And in making that assessment, you may want to consider the following:
- I suggest you cannot be sure that he was aiming for her spine. You have heard and may have some experience yourself that sledgehammers are not easy to control. It’s not clear he has a good grip and a solid stance on that first attempt. You can see that it is the side of the sledgehammer appears to make contact with PS Evans’ back. The photograph of the bruise in evidence is consistent with that. That may suggest he doesn’t have control, that may suggest he wasn’t trying to hit as hard as he could;
- I suggest you cannot be sure that he gave any thought to the level of force used. It may not have occurred to him and if it did he may have misjudged it in the heat of the moment;
- I suggest that you cannot be sure that it crossed his mind that there was a risk of injuring bone as opposed to simply causing a bruise. That wouldn’t have been unreasonable possibility, as we know that is what happened to PC Buxton;
- The medical evidence set out in your Agreed Facts is perhaps helpful. The literature is split, some suggesting such injuries can be caused with high energy, some suggesting that it can be caused with lower energy. Such injuries can be caused in motor vehicle accidents but also in falls (no information about what type of accidents or falls we’re talking about). But is does tell you the level of force used would be moderate to severe – and I suggest that the burden and standard of proof mean that you should decide that in the defendant’s favour and conclude that the force was moderate and that’s what you’re looking at. Force. The Agreed Facts tell you that high energy would be required, but that’s not the same as force. You may need a lot of energy to create a moderate force, depending on the mechanism. You don’t know how much of that force was being added by gravity or momentum.
- And finally take into account all you know about Sam Corner. He told you and you may agree from everything you have heard, he would never think to do that to someone.
The prosecution case hinges on this being a deliberate blow to the spine, intending to damage a person’s spine, possibly even intending to paralyse someone. Is that really what you think Sam Corner intended to happen, knowing everything you know about him? Or was he doing just what was reasonable in order to protect another, in the circumstances as he believed them to be, as he said moments later.
Everything you see is consistent with what Sam Corner has told you. It is not consistent with the prosecution case.
Because what he did is what he said seconds later. “I was protecting her”. The fact that it wasn’t repeated in interview is utterly irrelevant. The fact that it is set out in the legal directions that you may conclude that he has made that account up since his interview, shows how adverse inferences from silence are at best meaningless but at worst, if wrongly applied, dangerous. The fact that the prosecution ask you to draw such a nonsensical conclusion smacks of clutching at straws and a complete lack of judgment.
Imagine yourself again in Sam Corner’s position, arrested for the first time, arrested for terrorism, held incommunicado, still trying to process what has happened. Of course he is going to follow his solicitor’s advice. The fact that he was acting in defence of another, that he did not intend to cause really serious harm and that he was overwhelmed and panicked and unable to remember is all there in the evidence anyway.
Drawing all of that together and applying the legal directions you have to the evidence you’ve seen and heard leads you to the conclusion that his actions were or may have been in the lawful defence of another and to a verdict of Not Guilty on Count 2.
—
If you don’t agree, if you are sure this wasn’t defence of another, you still take all those points I have mentioned into account when determining whether Sam Corner intended to cause GBH. The answer I suggest must be no. Sam Corner told you “I would never want to seriously hurt anyone”. The reality is it did not cross his mind, and if he did not think about it, he did not formulate any intention. It doesn’t matter if he should have thought about it, it doesn’t matter if you think the likelihood of such harm was obvious, it wouldn’t even matter if he had foreseen a risk of really serious harm.
For GBH with Intent, or Attempted GBH, he has to have intended to cause really serious harm, and that simply isn’t the case. He didn’t plan to do it beforehand, he didn’t intend to do it at the time, he didn’t realise what had happened for quite some time afterwards.
You also have to consider another aspect of this count and the various alternatives, which is whether in fact this was in fact grievous bodily harm. Really serious harm to give it it’s modern terminology.
There is no legal definition beyond that. There is no list of injuries which fall into this category. It is a matter for you to decide.
Nothing I say is intended to diminish or downplay this injury. The problem is that ‘really serious’ is not a medical term or a precise legal term. Where this may fall is in the category of serious, but not really serious. Certainly actual bodily harm, but falling short of grievous bodily harm. Entirely a matter for you, but I ask you to bear in mind the following:
- Although the bottom of the scale for really serious harm is unclear, the top of the range is anything short of death. Really serious harm covers loss of limbs, someone being in a coma, loss of sight, major organ damage, permanent disability. It does not do a disservice to PS Evans to say that this injury is not in the same category;
- The words used by the prosecution, both to open and close this case, was that this was a fracture to the spine. The choice of words is deliberate. You would very quickly, and deliberately, have been put in mind of a break snapping the spinal column in two, the thick lumbar vertebrae in two from left to right. But that is why you now have the photographs of the CT scan in your agreed facts. So you can see that it was in fact the edge of what we now know to be called the transverse process in medical terms, the little sticky out bit in non-medical terms;
- This was an injury that was not obvious. The doctor viewing the X-ray initially did not identify any bony injury. That was only identified on review some days later by a specialist radiologist. A later MRI scan showed no visible bony injury. The point here being that it wasn’t clear and obvious;
- This was not an injury which required surgery. PS Evans was advised to take pain relief if necessary and engaged in physiotherapy. The prognosis of the specialists after reviewing all the medical evidence, as set out in the Agreed Facts, is that you would expect such a fracture to heal in 6 to 12 weeks, with full healing in 3 to 6 months – and no long-term consequences.
It’s entirely up to you to determine, so that you are sure, in all the circumstances, where it falls within the range of harm. What is clear is that it is not a matter Sam Corner can agree or disagree with. He was cross-examined about whether he thinks it is really serious harm or not, and he was criticised for saying “I can’t answer that question”. But how can he answer that. It is a matter for you to decide. That is the reality and the accurate legal position. It may be an issue on which different people may come to different views. In fact, even if the prosecution and defence agreed the position, it would still be up to you to decide, and you would be entitled to disagree. For someone who takes things very literally and is concerned to be precise in his answers, that simply isn’t a question Sam Corner can answer. This was – I regret to say – a cheap trick, designed to either force him to agree with the prosecution or to make him look bad in your eyes for simply maintaining the true legal position.
His position is honestly and fairly put. He did not intend to cause that level of injury. So even if, contrary to everything I’ve set out, you conclude that this is really serious harm, I am confident you will not hold it against him for seeking to uphold your autonomy, your role, for putting that decision in your hands.
Because he trusts you to make that decision. To analyse the evidence carefully and fairly. To apply your common sense and judgment. To apply that to all the evidence – you decide whether this was really serious harm, whether his response was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be, all of the issue
It is for issues like that that we have juries.
As Ms Head mentioned, there are proposals to cut juries out of Crown Court trials, to have guilt or innocence determined by Judges instead. But you will be hard pressed to find any criminal barrister, prosecution or defence, who supports that proposal. And I sincerely hope that, at the end of your time as jurors, your experience of the jury system will be a positive one, you will share our appreciation of the irreplaceable value that you bring and you will oppose the right to trial by jury being removed.
It is the only just and fair system for deciding guilt or innocence. That decision, that power should not be in the hands of one individual, who may not be properly representative of our society, who may have a singular viewpoint and narrow experience, who may bring with them conscious and unconscious bias and prejudice. Such decisions should be made by the community with your collective experience, common sense and integrity. Juries can and often do spot things that lawyers and judges have overlooked. Juries can and should be fearless and forensic. These are just some of the many reasons why our system is the envy of the world.
So perhaps the real question is, why do those in power want to take away the right to trial by jury? The reason maybe that even more so than the right to vote, the jury system gives power to the people, and power is not always given up easily. Establishing, embedding and defending the right to trial by jury that we now enjoy, the right to free and independent judgment by a panel of your peers, has been a long hard fight.
800 years ago, the Barons forced King John to agree to the right to trial by jury being in Magna Carta under threat of civil war.
400 years ago the monarchy had fought back and there was the Star Chamber, presided over by the King and his ministers. One historian later said of that period that:
‘…there scarcely occurs an instance, during all these reigns, that the sovereign, or the ministers, were ever disappointed in the issue of a prosecution. Timid juries… never failed to second all the views of the crown… it is obvious, that juries were then no manner of security to the liberty of the subject.’
That most hated and unfair court was, thankfully, abolished following the Civil War. Even 100 years ago, into the 20th century, there was indirect control perhaps, exercised by limiting who sat on a jury. Those who made the laws wanted to make sure that people who sat on juries looked and thought like them. Women weren’t allowed onto juries until 1919, and, until just over 50 years ago in 1971, jurors had to either be a property owner or a householder in a property worth a certain amount.
All of this is important, understanding that history is important. The role of the jury is not a rubber stamp. The role of the jury is quite the opposite. It is a protection against tyranny. It is a vital bulwark between the might of the state and the liberty of the individual. It is one of our essential checks and balances on which the legitimacy of the criminal justice system rests.
The prosecution, the State, must make you sure that these defendants are guilty. If they’ve done that, what you find proved and what you don’t, are all matters for you and only you to decide. You, and only you, are the people to whom the verdict is entrusted, no-one can tell you what you must do. No-one can ask you for the reasons behind your decision and as His Lordship directed you at the start of the trial it would in fact be a criminal offence for anyone to disclose what is discussed between the twelve of you in the sanctity of the jury room.
Those principles, that hard-fought independence, that solemn responsibility now falls to you to uphold and protect in accordance with your oath. Sam Corner and I trust that you will do that, and have faith that in doing so you will reach the right, proper and true verdicts in this case.
And finally, here is the powerful closing defence statement delivered by Ms Zoe Rogers:
As you’ve probably noticed, I decided to represent myself in this trial. Not because my barrister was doing a bad job or anything – we’ve actually become close friends – and I’m constantly telling the others I have the best barrister. I am so grateful for everything she has done for me, in this trial and the last. But this time I wanted to be able to speak to you myself.
During this trial you’ve heard some very important evidence. You’ve heard that there are factories on British soil making weapons to send to Israel. You’ve heard that the drones they make include Thor VTOL Quadcopters used to drop grenades, drones that are advertised as ‘battle tested’ on Palestinians. You’ve heard that drones use AI to target children, and that Magni X surveillance drones work in tandem with ‘killer drones’, and that Research & Development carried out in the UK is vital to the Israeli military. You’ve also heard that the Filton site was opened by the Israeli Ambassador, that it has export licences to Israel, that Elbit itself is the ‘backbone’ of the Israeli military.
You heard how we tried every democratic means available to us, including demonstrations, fundraisers, encampments, petitions, writing to MPs, stickers leading to Amnesty International information about the apartheid, vigils, arms factory pickets, the list goes on. And how none of it worked. You heard how direct action is effective, how it ended apartheid during the civil rights movement in America, how it is being used in the UK today to shut down weapons factories, 4 of which have been closed permanently.
You’ve heard that after we destroyed these drones we were arrested for terrorism – were held incommunicado – spent 18 months in prison without trial. You’ve heard that this is a retrial.
After hearing the 6 of us give evidence you might think it odd that what’s happening in Palestine has gone completely unmentioned, you might have noticed certain words that have been blacklisted, that until our closing speeches the word genocide wasn’t said once. There have been interruptions from the prosecution, quick subject changes from our barristers – it’s almost as if whole topics of conversation have been banned. The prosecution know full well that we are right that this factory is supplying weapons to Israel to be used in Gaza. That is why they are choosing to suppress it rather than contest it. The prosecution have decided that the legality of Israel’s actions is irrelevant in this trial. Because they know you could not in good conscience find us guilty of anything if you were allowed to hear the whole truth.
To find us guilty of criminal damage you have to be sure. You might recognise the term ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, it’s the same thing. And I’m going to use an analogy to explain this, because unlike this lot, I don’t have a legal degree.
Let’s imagine that you and someone you love have gone on holiday together. And one day you decide to go parachuting. Now, you’d want to be sure that this parachute is going to catch you. You wouldn’t just buy a cheap one off of Amazon, wouldn’t borrow one off a friend that had been rotting in their shed for a while. Because you’d want to know everything about this parachute! Its history, who had made it, how it had been used, maybe even its motivations? Because you’d want to know that as you’re plummeting towards the ground, when you set off that mechanism that parachute is going to catch you, because if you’re not sure, well, that’s a pretty permanent mistake. And this decision is no different. It is just as permanent, with life-changing consequences, and most importantly, you cannot take it back.
The prosecution have to make you sure, for you to be able to convict. But how can you be sure when you know you haven’t heard the whole truth?
Now I’m an ordinary person, with friends, family, a place at university, a cat I love, basically a whole lot to lose by going to prison. But you know that we all actually intended to be arrested on the 6th of August. We intended to go to trial. And I won’t speak for the others here, but the reason I was willing and confident enough to allow that, was because I knew that now, 20 months in the future, I would be standing in front of 12 ordinary people like you. Not politicians, not legal experts, not barristers and judges wearing 400 yr old horsehair on their heads, but a panel of my equals. You are the best counterweight to power and tyranny within the legal system as it exists today. It is a privilege to be judged by you. And I don’t say that to flatter you, but because as you’ve already heard, the right to trial by jury is under threat, with a Bill passing through the House of Commons as I speak. Juries as we know them today may not be around for much longer, precisely because your pockets cannot be weighed down by bribes from the rich and powerful. (And also because juries often refuse to convict in these kinds of cases). And that is a very powerful position for you to be in.
No one can tell you to convict in this case, not even the judge. In fact, the judge is explicitly not allowed to tell you to convict! You, and only you, can decide on your verdicts. But not only can you acquit us, but you have the RIGHT to acquit us. No one can punish you for your decision. No one can even ask you why.
I want you to know however, that whatever you decide, I will not hold it against you. How can I when you have been kept so in the dark. But you can be sure of one thing. I am proud, I am so proud that I took part in this. I am proud that I overcame my fear and took action, because of course I was scared, you don’t just break into an Israeli weapons factory for fun! And I can say with absolute certainty that this is the best thing I have ever done, because there is a good chance that because of our actions that night, innocent lives were saved.
And so I will never be ashamed that I was on trial, that I have spent 18 months in prison, that I may face many more.
You know that we have been treated as terrorists throughout this process. A domestic violence worker, two nursery school teachers, one Oxford graduate, an artist and me. It sounds dystopian, but it’s true, just like the proscription of Palestine Action.
But this time you are the decision makers. Unlike what the prosecution and the government want you to be, you are not a rubber stamp. Don’t fall into their trap.
Find the six of us Not Guilty of criminal damage.
BARRISTER IN FILTON TRIAL WINS APPEAL AGAINST CONTEMPT OF COURT PROCEEDINGS. MAY 6TH 2026
https://realmedia.press/barrister-wins-appeal/
This morning, the High Court handed down its judgment following an appeal by barrister Rajiv Menon KC’s legal team against his attempted prosecution for contempt of court. Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Dingemans and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith ruled that Mr Justice Johnson had no jurisdiction in law to refer the matter directly to the High Court.
Real Media was the first to publish defence barrister Rajiv Menon KC’s closing speech in full during the historic first trial of the #Filton6 in January. Our coverage of the whole trial and this speech was widely quoted (often without credit) in corporate, state and independent media.
At the end of that first trial, Judge Johnson, who has now been awarded a promotion, initiated contempt of court proceedings against the barrister, after the jury failed to convict any of the defendants on a multitude of charges.
Justice Johnson alleged that Menon had defied various legal directions including informing the jury that a judge may not direct them to convict, and speaking about the principle of jury equity. Menon was also accused of breaching rulings preventing him referencing the genocide in the Middle East or the role of weapons developers and suppliers, Elbit Systems.
During his speech, Mr Menon repeated several times that Judge Johnson was absolutely not going to direct the jury to convict:
“for the avoidance of any doubt about this, I am absolutely not asking you to disregard His Lordship’s legal directions. On the contrary, I’m asking you to follow them, in particular this section on functions of judge and jury, and remind you that nobody, not even His Lordship, can dictate to you what factual conclusions to reach in this case, nor direct you to convict the defendants of any of the charges they face.”
Menon also never mentioned the term ‘jury equity’, but did tell them about the historic (1670) Bushel’s case, which established the right in British law for a jury to give their verdict according to their convictions.
His speech was carefully crafted so as to avoid directly breaching directions, while trying to deliver the best possible representation for his client in a highly politicised case during which politicians and commentators were making dangerously prejudicial public statements without any apparent consequences.
There is a recognised tension in our justice system between the requirement for a jury to honour their oath and deliver a verdict based solely on the evidence, against the independence of the jury that was established in 1670. The former is a much needed protection against prejudice, while the latter is a moral protection against state abuse of power. The hope is that in a randomly selected jury of 12, that tension plays out fairly.
This tension has played out publicly in climate protest cases over the past few years, where juries acquitted defendants after either hearing about their motivations and/or the science of climate collapse, or after realising that judges were preventing them from hearing such evidence. When defendants were being imprisoned for contempt just for mentioning climate science, supporters began holding placards outside courts stating Bushel’s legal premise that ‘jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience’.
Despite a High Court ruling (won by Trudi Warner) that it was lawful to hold such placards in silent vigil, police began arresting people outside Woolwich Crown Court towards the end of the Filton 6 retrial, using Section 14 powers (meant to control violent and disruptive protests).
Any reporting of the contempt proceedings against Rajiv Menon was initially prohibited, due to restrictions put in place by Jeremy Johnson, but these were finally lifted last week after the conclusion of the Filton retrial, and after the Court of Appeal heard from lawyers acting for the barrister, who argued against the jurisdictional legality and procedural propriety of the case.
On Friday, Rajiv’s Chambers, Garden Court, issued a powerful statement of support expressing solidarity, and describing his prosecution as “a deeply troubling development for the integrity of the justice system”. The full statement was signed by 24 of his colleagues at the top-ranked human rights firm.
The lawyers’ statement raises wider constitutional questions around the chilling effect the prosecution might have had on the ability of barristers to represent clients effectively in political cases. Indeed, at the retrial of the #Filton6, after Judge Johnson again issued orders about what could not be mentioned in defence, five of the six defendants felt they had no option but to dispense with their legal teams when it came to their closing statements.
Rajiv Menon was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2011 and has represented clients in serious, complex and high-profile criminal defence cases, specialising in human rights violations, miscarriages of justice, political protest and state abuse of power. He worked on the Stephen Lawrence and Grenfell inquiries, acted for victims of the Hillsborough disaster, and is currently representing 12 individuals and organisations in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.
This is the first time in legal history that a barrister was facing such a prosecution over a closing speech in a criminal trial, and the procedure being used was without precedent.
Today’s judgment rules that Mr Justice Johnson was wrong to refer the alleged contempt to the High Court, and the Divisional Court would have had no jurisdiction over the case after such a referral.
Although the ruling is widely seen as a victory for justice and common sense, it may still be open for Johnson to try an alternative route by referring the allegation to the Attorney General or to the Bar Standards Board, however churlish that may appear.
