The Filton Trial – April 2026 [Latest update 28th April]
INDEX
Day One
Legal arguments, Jury selection, Judge’s “Homily” (introduction and directions to jurors), then more legal discussions. Court order breaches.
Day Two
Prosecution opening statement, Jury of 12 formalised
Prosecution witness: DC Sarah Grant (CCTV retrieval officer)
Day Three
Defence cross-examination of DC Grant by Mr Menon KC, and then by Mira Hammad and Andrew Morris
Prosecution witness: DC Phoebe Webber (footage reviewer) – Video evidence
Defence cross-examination by Mira Hammad
The beginning of the prosecution’s ‘Sequence of Events’.
Day Four
Prosecution witness: PC Kate Evans (first officer on the scene) describes the incident and her injuries. The next officer to take the stand was PC Aaron Buxton and after his testimony he was cross-examined by Mr Wainwright with a couple of final questions from Ms Heer.
The next police witness was PC Peter Adams who gave evidence to Ms Heer and then was cross-examined by Samuel Corner’s lawyer Tom Wainwright, and by Ms Kamio’s lawyer Mira Hammad and a short question from Jordan Devlin’s lawyer Andrew Morris.
The day ends with a long reading continuing the Sequence Of Events.
Day Five
Monday morning was spent on legal issues out of sight of the jury. After lunch the Sequence of Events continued. This was followed by the reading of a series of written witness statements from police officers. The afternoon closed with the prosecution reading out Agreed Facts including the medical reports on PC Evans’ injuries, some information about the police PAVA incapacitant spray, and other loose ends.
Day Six
Tuesday starts with the last section of Agreed Facts, and then after a break for more legal discussions, lead defence barrister Rajiv Menon KC called Charlotte Head to the witness stand for her Evidence-In-Chief, which took several hours. The day ended with a few questions from other defence lawyers and then two caharcter winess statements.
Day Seven
The judge tells the jury how to approach Character witness statements and then mentions medical diagnoses pertaining to the next defendant Sam Corner before he enters the witness stand to be taken through his evidence-in-chief with his lawyer Tom Wainwright. After preliminary questions about the charges, we hear about Sam’s background, education and engagement with Palestine and Palestine Action, before going through footage of the action itself. Mr Corner struggles with concentration and there is a short break before Mr Wainwright concludes his questioning. It’s approaching lunchtime, but Ms Heer begins prosecution cross-examination. After lunch, the judge agrees that Mr Corner should be allowed time to rest and give his best evidence in the morning, so the day ends early.
Day Eight
After technical issues with the court video playback and transmission systems, Ms Heer began the prosecution’s cross-examination of Samuel Corner playing footage and questioning Mr Corner about interactions with security guards, and then what happened after police officers arrived. Mr Corner’s evidence concluded after defence lawyer Mr Wainwright rose to clarify a couple of issues. Before lunch, Judge Johnson addressed the jury about protests going on outside the court– these included a silent protest by retired social worker Trudi Warner, who it turns out was arrested by police under controversial circumstances.
After lunch, Mr Wainwright read out three good character references relating to Samuel Corner, and then defence barrister Mira Hammad called Ms Leona Kamio to give her evidence-in-chief, beginning with her upbringing and background, then her introduction to Palestine Action and the events leading up to the action. Next, Ms Hammad took her through what happened inside the factory, and finally her arrest, detention and injuries.
After a couple of questions from Mr Wainwright, Ms Kamio faced cross-examination by prosecution lawyer Ms Gargitter. Ms Hammad rose to clear up a couple of questions and then read the first of several character witness statements.
INTRODUCTION
Six defendants – Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatima Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin – along with 18 others who will be tried in later proceedings, are charged with Criminal Damage. Samuel Corner alone faces an additional charge of Causing Grievous Bodily Harm With Intent.
Samuel Corner remains on remand, but the other five, having been held for more than a year on remand, were eventually freed on bail under strict conditions on 4th February this year.
The Criminal Damage indictment relates to an incident which took place on 6th August 2024, when the defendants are alleged to have, 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. On the same day, Mr Corner is alleged to have unlawfully and maliciously caused grievous bodily harm to Police Sergeant 4069 Kate Evans, with intent to do her grievous bodily harm.
The court sat from Monday 13th April and was expected to last between two and four weeks.
Crown court trials, especially in protest-related cases, will often have several days of legal arguments either in pre-trial hearings or at the start of the trial – these are designed to iron out what the issues are, which witnesses are called, what the scope of the evidence will be, what defences are available in law, whether any reporting restrictions should apply, and so on. Most of these arguments are not reported until after a verdict, in case any of it might prejudice a jury.
This case is no different, and is particularly sensitive due to controversial and prejudicial public comments made by Members of Parliament about Palestine Action and especially about the events which took place at the Filton Elbit Systems Ltd research and development factory, the ongoing legal tussle over the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and the ongoing genocide and expansion of wars in the Middle East.
DAY ONE – Monday 13th April
As explained above, there is very little we can report on about the morning because it was taken up with legal arguments.
Just before lunch a jury panel of 14 were selected, and Judge Johnson delivered what is called a ‘homily’.
This introduces the potential jurors to the workings of the court, pointing out where the various parties sit and who they are. He explains the reason for starting with 14 jurors – after the prosecution give their opening statement on Wednesday morning, in case any of the jurors have any reason not to continue, two are in reserve so that the whole selection process needn’t be started again.
The judge explains the roles of the judge and the jury and reminds them they are to reach a verdict on the evidence in the case, while he directs them on the applicable laws. He warns against any discussion outside the court, and against any research outside of the courtroom, and tells them to ignore any press reporting they may come across. At risk of labouring this point he warns them of dire legal consequence (including prison) for breaching these directions. He outlines the various stages of the trial telling them that on Wednesday morning the King’s Counsel, Ms Deanna Heer, will outline the allegations and a summary of the case that the prosecution hopes to prove. He gives them a very brief summary of the legal issues they will need to decide, and reminds them that the burden of proof is on the prosecution.
In the jury panel selection, potential jurors had already been asked whether they had particularly strong views on Palestine and the war in Gaza. The judge reminded them that they have now taken an oath – a promise to try the case only on the evidence – and that any such views must now be set aside as irrelevant. He also told them that the incident at Filton had occurred nearly a year before the Palestine Action group was proscribed by Yvette Cooper and so they should not be distracted by that or by the controversy over whether that proscription was lawful. (The High Court deemed it disproportionate and unlawful in February, but a government appeal against that decision is due to be heard at the end of the month).
Judge Johnson told the jury that whether or not the defendants thought they had any moral justification is “completely beside the point”, and the issues on which the jury must decide are “quite narrow”.
As the afternoon was spent on further legal arguments with no jury present, the only other business we can report is that late the previous week the prosecution indicated their position not to present evidence on other charges that were still open for three defendants, and so Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner and Leona Kamio were formally acquitted of violent disorder and can no longer be prosecuted for that offence.
Tuesday 14th April – due to prior commitments the court did not sit, but it is worth noting that aspects of the trial which are under direct reporting restrictions were publicised by overseas media, and were being widely disseminated by social media.
It would be a direct contempt of court for a UK media outlet to link to or repeat those breaches, but we believe we can report that the Member of Parliament for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana, rose in the Commons to make a short speech related to the new Crime and Policing Bill, during which she appeared to breach a court order under the protection of parliamentary privilege.
Fair and accurate reporting of parliamentary business is of course permitted, but rather than publish her comments here (risking contempt proceedings), we will simply link to Parliament’s public footage of her full speech here.
DAY TWO – Wednesday 15th April
Although the jury had been asked to come in at 10am, there were still some legal issues to be discussed, and a panel of 13 potential jurors eventually sat much later in the morning to hear the Opening Statement from the prosecution. [One of the 14 from Monday was excused and discharged this morning.]
Deanna Heer KC opened the case for the prosecution:
The six defendants, members of ‘Palestine Action’, entered the factory belonging to Elbit Systems with the intention of occupying it and doing as much damage as possible before being removed by police. There was full planning beforehand, and everyone knew their role and what was required of them. It involved a large number of people, with a ‘black team’ intended to overwhelm the security so that the ‘red team’ could break in.
The red team’s job was to smash as much property as possible until the police arrived, and they brought crowbars and sledgehammers in order to do so. Samuel Corner went further. When police arrived he assaulted officers. One, PC Buxton, was hit while he was lying on the ground. The other, Acting Sergeant Kate Evans, suffered a fractured spine after being struck while she faced away from him on all fours posing no threat.
Ms Heer identified each defendant in the dock, and the charges against them.
Elbit Systems UK Ltd. manufactures weapons and is registered in the UK, although its parent company is based in Israel. Evidence will include CCTV and body worn footage (BWV) of police, security and the defendants. Footage was not obtained from EVERY camera in the factory, and some BWV didn’t record fully – stopping and starting, but the Crown say it provides enough evidence of what happened.
On 6th August at around 3am, a prison van was driven through the fences, followed on foot by a dozen ‘coverts’ (who were intending to get away without being caught). They had fireworks and smoke grenades in order to distract security, along with an angle grinder which was used on the shutter to weaken it, before the prison van was driven at it. Once it gave way, and the red team gained entry, the black team left through a hole in the fence.
The prison van contained the red team (all dressed in red jumpsuits and without face-coverings – they were ‘overts’ expecting to be arrested). They’re shown with tools and equipment. They managed to break into the warehouse itself. Photographs show they caused extensive damage – red paint from fire extinguishers, smashed computers, drones and other equipment, as well as security cameras and even a toilet.
Security guard Patrick Luke tried to intervene – and was confronted by several of the intruders carrying sledgehammers, telling him to ‘fuck off’ and ‘leave’. Another guard, Angelo Volante, ran in to the warehouse shouting that they were being recorded. He was carrying a whip (confiscated from one of the black team outside the building). Devlin said the factory “wouldn’t be here tomorrow”. Volante warned Charlotte Head not to swing her hammer, and she said ‘ get out and I won’t’. He left the area after being sprayed with a fire extinguisher.
Another guard, Mr Shaw, arrived – he appeared injured, and was carrying a crumpled umbrella. Mr Corner swung his sledgehammer at him, narrowly missing him. Mr Luke also re-entered and grabbed a sledgehammer from Ms Kamio and they grappled with it. Mr Corner ran over to assist and screamed ‘get the fuck out’. Mr Luke backed off, saying the police were on their way. Mr Corner then smashed up the disabled toilet, and the others are shown in footage smashing equipment or spraying paint.
The police arrived soon after. The floor was wet and slippery. Mr Volante and PC Adams approached Ms Kamio – she had a sledgehammer above her head. Mr Volante took it off her and she threw some object. Police used a Taser on her and she fell to the ground. She continued to resist and struggle as the officer applied handcuffs.
Mr Volante approached Devlin with the sledgehammer, but Devlin slipped. As he got up, Volante engaged with him, and as Mr Corner approached them, PC Buxton discharged a PAVA spray (which “stings” the eyes). The officer and Mr Devlin ended up on the floor and Mr Corner then hit Buxton twice with sledgehammer, hitting his leg the second time.
PS Evans had tried to arrest Ms Rogers and they were also both on the floor – she was on all fours facing away from Mr Corner and he raised the hammer and hit her on her back, and then tried a second time. She was wearing a stab vest which may have protected her to some extent, but she screamed and was unable to get up. PC Buxton got to Mr Corner and managed to restrain him. Mr Volante got the two other women on the ground and police then arrested them.
Ms Heer paused her opening prosecution statement to play some BWV footage of the interactions she had described, first warning the jury that it was very jerky, but that they would be going over it more times during the course of the trial, and then she continued with her speech.
After the incident a phone was retrieved which showed evidence of a ‘GoPro’ group, in touch with other Palestine Action organisers. Some footage uploaded in that group was later posted on line – it showed Ms Rajwani and Ms Head laughing and saying ‘you’ve been Pal-Actioned’.
APS Evans had a large red mark on her back which later turned into a bruise. A hospital X-ray revealed a lumbar fracture, confirmed by a later CT scan. She was treated with pain-killers at the time, but carried on having pain, and is still on restricted police duties as a result.
After a break for lunch, Ms Heer continued with the prosecution’s opening statement.
Planning documents were found by police on an encrypted online platform (Cryptpad), which showed meticulous planning for an attack with the objective to “Shut Elbit Down” and close the site for a significant amount of time. The planning anticipated there would be security guards (referred to as “Elbit pigs”), and the black team’s role was to push back and ‘challenge’ security allowing the red team to enter ‘with vengeance’. Red group were instructed to continue, ‘louder, angrier and more determined’ if challenged.
Ms Heer told the jury that the planning documents included photos taken from a reconnaissance of the site – activists had been caught on CCTV camera carrying this out on 26th July. A list of equipment that would be required broadly corresponded with what was later used. She took the jury through evidence of equipment purchases (including the prison van), messages exchanged, journeys undertaken and so on. She introduced the ‘jury bundle’ – a folder of documents, photos and suchlike, which included a map of the Bristol area on which were marked the Elbit premises, an Air BnB where the activists met, a campsite where some stayed. She went through telephone evidence and CCTV captures showing the whereabouts and the journeys of the various defendants. She went through evidence of further reconnaissance and the collection of a hired Enterprise van the day before the action, later used by the black team to leave the site. Various cameras captured the journeys of vans to Elbit, and messages that had been intercepted on the Signal group showed communications between them as they arrived.
She said that all of this amounted to a clear plan and ‘joint responsibility’, a legal term alleging that each of the defendants shared an intention to commit the offence and took some part in it however large or small. She described the details of the indictments and what the prosecution intend to prove.
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The jury were then given a short break and there were some further legal discussion mainly about the order of events in the coming days.
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On their return, the extra juror was formally discharged, leaving the twelve who are going to hear the evidence in the trial and return a verdict. It’s important to note that the prosecution’s opening statement is not in itself evidence, although some video evidence was shown as part of it. It merely sets out the basis on which the prosecution is brought. So from now on, it WILL BE the evidence that the jury hears.
FIRST PROSECUTION WITNESS:
Detective Constable Sarah Grant is a police CCTV retrieval expert. Ms Heer begins by asking her to describe her qualifications and experience in that role. Ms Grant confirmed she was asked to go to Elbit Systems on the 8th August in order to retrieve relevant footage. Police had been given footage on a USB stick by Elbit security personnel, but it wasn’t possible to play it.
Ms Grant identified the security system as one made by Pelco, with 53 cameras, some fixed, some triggered by motion, and a few PTZ cameras (able to be controlled remotely to Pan/Tilt/Zoom). She described how she watched footage from multiple cameras on a video wall in the security office, with nine cameras per screen, and tried to identify any camera that showed movement at the relevant times. The guards initially pointed out nine cameras (the ones supposedly loaded on to the USB stick), and Ms Grant told the court that she had identified a further three cameras that showed relevant images.
Although she’d been asked to recover ALL footage, she described issues downloading footage – the system kept crashing, and she estimated it would take weeks to obtain it all. As a result she identified 18 cameras covering the areas required, but realised even this would take several days to download, so finally reached an agreement with E to download just 12 cameras covering the 90 minutes of incident (3am – 4.30am).
She said that even these downloads had issues – cameras had different frame rates – one as slow as a single frame every 17 seconds. She said that she related her concerns to the security manager at Elbit, and that on the 9th August another technical expert Mr Uddin attended with her and they “dip sampled” several of the cameras (fewer than ten) and discovered multiple different frame rates. They were given access to the main server and saw that these cameras were indeed all set to different rates.
Ms Heer showed her the map of cameras in the building and Ms Grant confirmed that despite the issues described, staff managed to provide her with ‘most’ of the passwords she required to be able to access and download directly from the server, rather than as before from the PC systems in the security control room. Grant commented that in eleven years of investigations she had never come across a system so difficult to deal with, with all these different frame rates and continual crashes etc.
Ms Heer showed the officer a map or plan of the site with camera numbers marked on it – some in blue and some in orange (signifying respectively whether the police had footage from them or not). Asked whether she knew why some of the cameras in the warehouse didn’t have relevant footage, she replied that her job was to collect footage that showed relevant imagery, not to conduct an audit of the system.
Ms Grant explained that although the original request was to obtain ALL footage, they actually settled for a much smaller amount, partly because of custody time constraints.
Asked about Elbit staff’s cooperation the officer said they had been very helpful, and although there had been some confusion around passwords for server access, in the end they had most of the ones required.
It was late in the day, so cross-examination was reserved until the morning.
DAY THREE – Thursday 16th April
Before lead defence barrister Mr Menon began cross-examination of police CCTV retrieval officer Sarah Grant, Judge Johnson told the jury that the head security officer at Elbit would be referred to as ‘Witness Alpha’. There were, he said, reasons for that which the jury should not hold against the defendants in any way.
Mr Rajiv Menon KC is the lead defence barrister and represents defendant Charlotte Head in the case. He first asked DC Grant to confirm that a local officer, Alice Tanner, had visited the factory on the morning of the action and obtained two USB sticks with footage given by security.
She said she didn’t know who, but agreed that she was later aware a local officer had collected the sticks which contained BWV and CCTV footage respectively, but police discovered they were unplayable. Her superior, Detective Sergeant Crawley had therefore asked her to travel from London to retrieve all the footage.
She was met at Elbit by someone she thought was ‘very high up in the company’, the security manager identified as Witness Alpha. Mr Menon explained to the jury that the manager’s identity has been withheld from the defence. The barrister asked her to confirm whether she was aware that Elbit manufactures defence technology equipment including drones, and its parent company is based in Israel.
Going to the subject of the identification and downloading of relevant footage, Mr Menon asked if she knew what was on the original USB sticks. She said that security told her it was images from nine cameras. Mr Menon pointed out that that meant they were ‘pre-selected by Elbit’. She had watched those nine cameras first, and then looked at the remaining 44 cameras herself – he asked her about that process.
She explained how she watched all the screens and identified any movements, but hadn’t collected details about frame rates and so on, and there may have been cameras with even slower rates than 17 seconds – that information was gathered later, to some extent, by Mr Uddin.
Mr Menon referred to statements made by the officer in earlier proceedings, and noted that the current map or plan showed all of the known cameras, but an earlier version had not – in fact, all the orange ones had been missing. He also mentioned that as a result of the discovery of perceived gaps in coverage coming to light during those earlier proceedings, a new map had been provided.
Mr Menon asked how Grant could be really sure she’d seen all relevant footage and she said all the cameras she’d watched had been working because otherwise there would be a blank or frozen screen. The barrister asked if she’d made a note of any frozen screen, as this is the first time she’d mentioned it, again asking if there was a possibility there was missing footage, because she was entirely dependant on what Elbit were showing her.
She said she had carried out her work correctly and that there would be no footage of any movement from the cameras marked as orange. Menon highlighted cameras C22 and C23 which appeared to cover some relevant areas of the warehouse floor. She maintained she’d seen everything.
He also asked her about correspondence with Witness A in which she said she hadn’t been able to view the footage she had downloaded and taken away. The police officer said she raised concerns that “from what I have viewed, there is a huge opportunity for the Defence Counsel to use the gaps, jumps in the footage, to their advantage”. She explained that she was simply highlighting her concerns about the seriousness of the situation and the state of the security system.
Returning to the camera coverage and the map, Mr Menon pointed out that C21 covered an area known as Zone 9 where there was substantial action, and yet C22 and 23 appeared to cover that same area. He suggested that she had either missed movement from those cameras (which she denied), or that Elbit had not shown her the footage (which she also denied).
Ms Mira Hammad (barrister for Leona Kamio) asked Ms Grant more questions about these cameras, pointing out that in earlier proceedings she hadn’t suggested cameras might be even slower than 17 seconds and that there was nothing in her notes about that.
In those earlier proceedings, questions had been raised about missing footage, and as a result, police officers revisited Elbit Systems in November last year. Although there was no footage remaining on the system from the previous year, they found two Metropolitan Police evidence bags in a safe there, with Ms Grant’s name on them.
The officer couldn’t explain or remember how it got there.
Returning to the correspondence with Witness Alpha, Ms Hammad pointed out that Elbit’s factory was a state-of-the-art research and development weapons manufacturer. At this point, Judge Johnson interrupted to tell her to get on with a question, and she continued asking whether Ms Grant thought it was credible such a company would have such a poor CCTV set-up. The judge again interrupted saying the witness mustn’t be asked to speculate.
Instead, Ms Hammad asked whether there was a possibility that Witness Alpha had not shown her everything, especially in light of an email that mentioned that although a security guard could download footage with one password, there was another system password which never came to light, which gave access to settings. Ms Grant said they hadn’t needed this password other than to advise improvements.
Mr Andrew Morris (barrister for Jordan Devlin) asked the officer for clarification about the nine cameras she first watched. She agreed she’d been told by guards that those were the nine on the first USB stick, although she’d never been able to play that. She also confirmed that they seemed to know which nine they’d said they had supplied. He showed the officer a photo taken by Mr Uddin on the 10th, which showed the video wall, with camera C30 not working. He asked her whether it had been working on the footage she’d been shown and she said she thought so, yes.
Next witness was Detective Constable Phoebe Webber, whose role was to view the footage compilation material and assist the court. Ms Heer asked her to confirm that the compilation had various sections blanked out, that it had been decided were not relevant to this trial, and rather than compress it, it was left with the blanks so as to not affect timings and involve extra work.
From there on, her role in the witness box was effectively to verify what Ms Heer then shows to the jury.
The compilation begins with overhead images of the site to help orientate where the van entered, its path to the loading bay and so on. Then there’s actual CCTV footage of the arrival of the van, some clips of the ‘black team’ lighting fireworks and flares, and the van’s entry into the loading bay.
Ms Heer takes the jury through the various clips with the available footage depicting events inside the warehouse including several interactions between the defendants and security guards.
The video evidence continues after a break for lunch, with footage of Mr Corner smashing the toilet area, evidence of damage, and finally the arrival of police officers and subsequent arrests, during which incidents of alleged violence occur. There is also a clip, later published on Palestine Action’s social media, of Ms Head and Ms Rajwani saying they’d managed to break in to Elbit Systems’ most secure factory, that it had been “Pal-Actioned” and “Long live the resistance”.
Barrister for Ms Kamio, Mira Hammad, asks DC Webber some questions next.
She begins by showing the jury a graphic representation of the alcove space and an entrance door from the security area, and then replays the clip where Mr Luke is shown walking from left to right in a distant shot from C20. The graphic plan shows that C24 is right opposite the entrance – Mr Luke would have been walking towards that camera. On a screenshot of the video wall in the security office, we can clearly see that that is the view from C24.
As the C20 clip is played, we hear screaming (out of shot), but we have no footage of that area where the screaming comes from (which should have been from C24), this despite the fact there are people constantly in that walkway for around 90 seconds.
C23 also appears to have a view of that alcove and we have no footage from that camera either.
Next the lawyer shows some of the BWV footage taken in Zone 2 – again a lot of activity in an area with grey doors and blue carpet. Looking back at the video camera plan – C28 shows that blue walkway and grey doors – but apparently there’s no footage from C28 either.
Ms Webber confirms these angles and that there appeared to be no available footage, and her evidence comes to an end.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:
Detective Constable Hayden Johns then takes the stand to confirm the prosecution’s Sequence of Events. This is a spreadsheet given to the jury which presents a timeline of all the bits of evidence, building up a picture of the planning and execution of the action. It is a cut-down version of a similar document presented in earlier proceedings, and we’ll not give a detailed version again here.
None of it is contested by defence lawyers.
Examples of entries might be evidence of membership of Signal groups, financial and travel records, google searches discovered on computers and phones, exchanged messages, uncontested witness statements and suchlike. They build up a picture that ties the defendants to the planned action. It also includes all the individual references to CCTV footage and photos which will be available to the jury. It is dozens of pages long with many entries.
By the end of the day, we’ve only heard the first forty entries, but police witnesses are expected to take the stand on Friday and the Sequence of Events will be revisited after their evidence.
DAY FOUR – Friday 17th April
The prosecution call Police Constable Kate Evans, who was an Acting Sergeant at the time of the incident. She tells the court she was one of the first officers on the scene along with Acting Sergeant Adams and PC Aaron Buxton.
The first unusual thing they saw was the prison van jammed into the loading bay. When they entered the warehouse she says they saw red paint on the walls and several people in red boiler suits. There was a female with raised sledgehammer, and a security guard covered in foam was moving towards her – APS Adams went to assist, and Evans went towards a woman with ginger hair (Zoe Rogers) and tried to arrest her, but they both slipped over on the wet floor. She started to caution her initially on suspicion of criminal damage, but was struggling to get handcuffs on her wrists, because they were very slim.
Sgt Evans was on her knees, trying to deal with Ms Rogers and bending over her. She turned and saw PC Adams looking upwards, and then she felt an impact on her back – a thud – which dispersed across her body and down her legs. She didn’t know what had caused it until she turned and saw the sledgehammer, and was shocked. She later discovered that it was Mr Corner who had struck her. Realising there was a possibility she may have had a severe injury, she wiggled her toes to check.
Ms Heer reminded her that her statement had said at the time that her ‘legs felt like jelly’ and that she had panicked, so decided not to try and get up. She confirmed she had felt just one impact.
She scooted around on the floor and checked Corner’s handcuffs once he had been arrested by PC Buxton, and then she removed Taser barbs from his clothing. She also had a brief conversation with him during which he said that she was protecting a company who have facilitated violence abroad, and genocide – she replied that he’d hit someone with a sledgehammer – he replied that he was trying to protecting “her” (she assumed he meant one of the other defendants).
Ms Heer then asked PC Evans about her injuries and subsequent recovery.
At the hospital, she was given painkillers and told to go home after they’d looked at an X-ray without identifying any damage, but a few days later they contacted her saying there was sign of a fracture.
She described that over the following weeks she needed help with dressing and showering, and was unable to drive. She could find no comfortable position at night due to pain. Doctors prescribed stronger painkillers, and when she complained of pins and needles and some loss of sensation, she was sent for an MRI scan. This revealed no nerve compression or other damage so they said it was just a matter of recovery time and arranged physiotherapy. She was told there would be no long-term consequences.
Evans told the court she returned to work after 3 months on restricted duties, but still has some weakness in her hip and leg. The court was shown some photos of bruising, taken a few days after the incident.
Next on the witness stand was PC Aaron Buxton.
After introducing himself to the court, PC Buxton described entering the warehouse and seeing two females smashing ‘items’ with a sledgehammer, and a security guard and Devlin ‘fighting over’ a similar sledgehammer. Burglar alarms were going off, and there was a sickly chemical smell. The floor was wet with something that he thought was causing the smell. Mr Corner appeared to be swinging a sledgehammer in front of the two men.
Buxton fired his PAVA spray at Mr Corner, and then tackled Devlin to the floor, allowing the guard to remove the hammer. He ended up on the slippery floor with Mr Devlin, and saw Mr Corner approach and swing a hammer at him “multiple times”. He said that he felt a significant pain in his right calf, and assumed the hammer had hit him, but couldn’t say for definite because of the adrenaline in the situation, as he was terrified.
Corner moved away and towards Sgt Evans. Devlin was still somehow on top of Buxton, but the officer remembered being able to get up and Devlin moving away, and he focussed on Mr Corner who was raising his hammer to bring it down on to APS Evans, “as if intending to cause some sort of injury”. He knew it made contact, due to her reaction.
He confirmed that he only saw one impact, and then he pulled Mr Corner down from behind. There was a struggle and he said that Mr Corner was resisting and trying to put a hand in his pocket, so the officer punched him a few times. One of the other officers, Sgt Adams, came and assisted.
Ms Heer asked whether Corner took anything from his pocket. The officer said he thought he might have had a lighter but wasn’t sure, and he was concerned that the fluid around them might be flammable.
Ms Heer took him back to the start of the incident and asked about Mr Corner swinging the hammer, Buxton described it as swinging in front of him possibly trying to knock the sledgehammer out of the hands of Volante and Devlin.
Mr Corner’s lawyer, Tom Wainwright then asked some questions, beginning with a question about the smell in the warehouse when he entered. Buxton said it was a sickly chemical smell, very strong, that made him feel sick. Mr Wainwright played the officer’s BWV once more, after warning that obviously we have the benefit of slow motion, freeze frames, and that it may not have shown what PC Buxton saw.
The video begins with Ms Head, Mr Corner and Mr Devlin coming into view, and Devlin slipping over. There is a sledgehammer on the floor. Security guard Volante approaches him with a sledgehammer in both his hands, and Devlin begins to get up holding his hands out to grab that hammer.
The officer says he didn’t remember seeing Devlin slip, but first noticed him in a struggle over the sledgehammer, but he accepts what’s shown on the BWV.
Mr Wainwright reminds Buxton that in his evidence-in-chief he had just said that Mr Volante had moved the hammer with some force towards Mr Devlin’s face or neck, and then Mr Corner was waving his sledgehammer as if to try and knock the sledgehammer out of the security guard’s hand. Mr Wainwright suggests that it DID actually make contact with the guard’s sledgehammer, but Mr Volante doesn’t appear to react, or to stop. PC Buxton then discharges his PAVA spray. Looking at the timings on the BWV, the whole of this sequence took just three seconds (from when Devlin slipped, to Mr Corner approaching and being sprayed).
PC Buxton was asked to describe what PAVA spray is – a synthetic version of pepper spray that is squirted at the eyes to incapacitate someone, causing pain, confusion, and disorientation, taking effect immediately and lasting for some time. Pain can be reduced with plenty of fresh air or lots of running water.
The next video clip shows Mr Corner reacting by turning and walking away with his hand to his face. Mr Volante also moves away, and Buxton engages with Mr Devlin (who was wearing goggles) and they both slip to the floor. As there’s no other footage of this available, Mr Wainwright suggests it’s difficult to know what the struggle might look like to someone else, and PC Buxton appears to accept this.
Buxton remembers seeing Mr Corner coming back and swinging his sledgehammer down at him, he said originally “multiple times”. Mr Wainwright says the BWV seems to show just two swings, and PC Buxton agrees that’s possible. He also agrees he can’t be certain he was hit by the hammer, but assumes so because he felt pain. There was also evidence of a ‘slight, faint bruise’ which appeared a few days later.
We know Buxton stood up and went towards Sergeant Evans. In evidence he’d described hearing a “horrible” scream, believed to be one of the women (probably Leona Kamio) being tasered.
Mr Wainwright didn’t ask about the incident with Sergeant Evans, but asked Buxton to confirm that Mr Corner had his sledgehammer back down at his side when the officer tackled him to the ground. It took a while to put on the handcuffs, during which time Mr Corner was continually groaning and trying to wipe his eyes. Reminding the jury that they had some footage of this, Mr Wainwright said he had no further questions.
Ms Heer asked for a couple of clarifications. First, she asked PC Buxton to describe the pain at the moment he thought he’d been hit. He described it as a sharp direct pain to his calf, which is why he thought it was a strike, rather than a twist or strain. He said it was still hurting several hours later causing a slight limp or hobble. Then she asked about the struggle with the handcuffs. Buxton said Mr Corner had tried to pull his arms away and even tried to stand a couple of times, and Sgt Adams helped pull him down.
After a short break, PC Peter Adams was called as a witness, and he clarified he had been an acting Sergeant at the time of the incident but was currently a police constable.
On the night of the incident he arrived with the two other officers and they were met by “dishevelled-looking” security staff who directed their access to the building. Entering the warehouse he saw six people in red boiler suits smashing items with sledgehammers, red paint sprayed on walls, and some fluid all over the floor.
Security guard Angelo Volante had gone in front of him, and Adams said he saw Leona Kamio raise her sledgehammer as he approached. Ms Heer asked him to clarify what he saw Ms Kamio do, and he said she was swinging the sledgehammer in front of her and then raised it over her head when the guard approached.
He said he was concerned she would use it, so shouted “Drop that fucking thing now” and pulled out his Taser. He said Volante actually grabbed the hammer off her, and she then picked up an object from a table and threw it. It hit his leg, and he said he felt a sharp pain so he discharged the Taser.
He explained to Ms Heer that the Taser releases barbs which on contact deploy a five-second electrical charge. This caused Ms Kamio to fall to the ground.
The jury were shown Adams’ BWV of interaction with Ms Kamio, which showed her pulling her hands away as he tried to force the handcuffs in rear-stack position (behind her back). In the struggle he knelt on her stomach to cause pain and compliance.
He described seeing Sgt Evans engaging with Zoe Rogers nearby, and she was on her knees, when Mr Corner ran in behind her and brought his sledgehammer down on her back. He said that she screamed, and that Corner brought the hammer down a second time, after which she turned and laid on her back. Mr Corner was about 3-5 metres away and PC Adams discharged his Taser at him, but it may have not made contact. PC Buxton tackled Corner from behind, and brought him down.
The first set of Taser barbs were still attached to Ms Kamio so she had had a second five-second cycle of electric shock, and he managed to put her in the handcuffs and also had a hold of Ms Rogers.
Mr Devlin meanwhile held out his hands in a sort of ‘surrender’ motion and PC Adams confirms that he then led Jordan Devlin to a nearby table and told him to sit there, and that Devlin complied. Adams went to help PC Buxton, who was behind Mr Corner restraining him on the ground but having trouble getting him in handcuffs. Once the handcuffs were on, Adams walked round the corner and saw the two females, Ms Rajwani and Ms Head, lying compliantly on the floor.
Finally he described how officers had to drag Mr Corner and Ms Kamio out of the factory, because they wouldn’t stand, instead going limp and ‘dead-weight’.
Lawyer for Mr Corner, Tom Wainwright, asked PC Adams about the fluid on the floor. He confirmed he thought it was fire extinguisher liquid, and so was unlikely to be flammable.
Mr Wainwright asked whether Leona Kamio was screaming several times throughout, and shouting “You’re hurting me” and so on. PC Adams said he couldn’t recall any screaming.
There were problems playing the footage in court – the trial has been plagued with these sort of technical difficulties throughout – so another short break was called while it was sorted out.
After the break, PC Adams’ BWV was shown again, and it appears to confirm that there WERE loud screams from Ms Kamio during the interaction with PC Adams.
Mr Wainwright describes the layout of tables and partitions and where people were. He paints the picture that as Mr Corner approaches, Adams, Evans, Kamio and Rogers are all down on the floor – effectively all that Sam Corner can see is various people on the floor behind the table, and he’s hearing Kamio screaming as if in a lot of pain.
Taking the officer very slowly through the footage, he points out that Sgt Evans is assisting by grabbing Ms Kamio’s arm, near her head, as Mr Corner appears behind her, and then we see the first contact from the sledgehammer which looks like it might be side on, not the narrow end of the head. Mr Wainwright asks Adams to look carefully at the second alleged blow, and he agrees that it looks like it lands on the floor, near Ms Kamio’s head and in the area where the officer had been holding Kamio’s arm. Next we see Sgt Evans take hold of the hammer as Adams discharges his Taser.
Looking at the same moment from PC Buxton’s BWV, Mr Wainwright notes that we can see Mr Corner move closer before his second hammer swing, leaning forward, and although the image is unclear, it seems the sledgehammer does indeed land between Ms Evans and Ms Kamio. The jury will of course have time to watch and rewatch this.
Nearing the end of his cross-examination Mr Wainwright asks Adams to confirm he was trying to rear-cuff Mr Corner, and that this would mean that Sam would not have been able to touch or rub his face. He also asked whether he’d heard Mr Devlin reporting that he’d been hit with a sledgehammer by Mr Volante. Adams said he couldn’t recall “who he was on about”. Wainwright said that at the moment of that allegation there were only Devlin, Buxton and Volante in the immediate area.
Barrister Mira Hammad then asked some questions on behalf of Leona Kamio. She began by scrutinising what PC Adams actually saw when he entered. She suggests it was possible Ms Kamio already had her sledgehammer raised, facing a bank of computer screens, as they entered, and that he shouted ‘drop that fucking thing’ before she turned and faced Mr Volante.
The officer maintains his belief that she turned and raised it at the security guard, and the footage is played once more. He accepts that at the start of the clip Ms Kamio can be seen facing computers with the sledgehammer raised. After the footage is played again slowly he also accepts that he shouted his warning as they approached her, and she turned towards them with the hammer still over her shoulder. Within a period of seven seconds from the start, Mr Volante has run at her and grabbed the hammer. Having identified that part of the police officer’s recollection was wrong, Ms Hammad puts it to him that all of it may be confused.
Referring to a small black object Ms Kamio picks up off the table, Ms Hammad suggests that the footage shows PC Adams’ left leg is by now very close to her, and so if she intended to throw the object on the floor, it’s possible it hit his leg by accident. He doesn’t accept this interpretation, but agrees that within three seconds he is discharging his Taser without warning, only shouting ‘Taser’ at the time he fires.
Ms Hammad asks him to confirm that the Taser barbs are 1 or 2 centimetres-long needles that pierce the flesh and release the electric current, designed to temporarily tense up the muscles and prevent movement. They can cause burns around the needles, and cause confusion and disorientation.
PC Adams agrees that Ms Kamio tensed and fell onto her face, but didn’t think there would be confusion and disorientation. Ms Hammad asked if he’d realised as he turned her over the barbs would dig into her. He said he didn’t know exactly where the barbs were. He agreed that he hadn’t removed them when he fired at Mr Corner, so she got a further shock, and that then he’d knelt on her stomach to cause ‘pain-compliance’. He accepted that when we hear her screaming and shouting, that was the intended effect of his kneeling on her.
Ms Hammad asked the officer if he’d had College of Policing training in the use of Tasers and whether he knew that the shock could cause confusion and disorientation. He said he’d had the training but that that information hadn’t been part of it. Ms Hammad said she had the guidance in front of her, and he accepted that must be the case, but that he wasn’t aware of it.
Andrew Morris is the barrister for Jordan Devlin. He had one question for the officer – whether Mr Devlin had accused Mr Volante of assaulting him, in PC Adams’ presence. This was not disputed.
This concluded the police evidence and the business of the morning.
After a lunch break, the prosecution resumed where they left off yesterday on the ‘Sequence of Events‘ timeline.
Again, this was a line by line spreadsheet of evidence, beginning with receipts for equipment purchases, the messages and payment for the Bristol Air BnB, the hire of another Enterprise van, phone geolocation evidence, ANPR evidence of vehicle movements, photos showing reconnaissance of the factory, various CCTV clips, and so on.
There was reference to a Palestine Action Cryptpad planning document which described the plan for ‘coverts’ to cause distraction to enable ‘overts’ to enter the factory and damage equipment. It described the equipment required, including ropes to help tie doors and create a barricade so that the protesters could carry on smashing items and hold off the authorities. It’s quite a detailed plan of how entry would be achieved, with contingency plans and details about the factory. Filton is described as Elbit’s highest security site, and a key research and development facility. There are also instructions on the importance of collecting intelligence information about the company and its partners and suppliers, with instructions for the GoPro operators to ensure they capture useful images of paperwork where possible.
The timeline continues with more CCTV sitings and evidence of the defendants’ journeys, written statements from the owner of the Bristol campsite, the AirBnB owner, a nearby neighbour, the van hire manager, a camper at the campsite, and then photos of equipment found at the factory after the event, which correspond with the purchases evidenced earlier.
All of the above has been read out by Mr Harry Warner, lawyer for the prosecution, and confirmed from the witness box by Detective Constable Hayden Johns. It’s been a long afternoon but it is clear Mr Warner won’t make it quite to the end, so Judge Johnson thanks the jury for their attention and tells them to return on Monday afternoon at 2pm, because the morning will be taken up by some further legal discussions. He gives them the usual warnings not to do research or talk to others about the case over the weekend.
The whole morning at Woolwich Crown Court was spent on legal issues and rulings.
The jury sat again after lunch at 2pm and Mr Harry Warner for the prosecution continues reading out the final sections of the Sequence of Events which were left unfinished on Friday afternoon.
Again, this involves receipts, CCTV clips, Go Pro clips, and so on, all covering the identities and movements of defendants and their vehicles in the period leading up to the action.
Messages are read out that took place between defendants and alleged off-site organisers during the action. These include a brief reference to drones and quadcopters – one says “these are quadcopters they are no (sic) supposed to have”.
The timeline finished with a reference to some footage posted by Palestine Action on social media channels after the action.
This was the 382nd line of the documents, which comprised more than 100 pages in total.
Prosecution lawyer Ms Emma Gargitter reads out a series of agreed written witness statements.
The first is written by PC James Tregaskis, which describes him receiving a call for assistance from officers initially attending the incident at Elbit. He said he conducted a search of the first floor for other offenders and then a search of the area around the premises. He found a hole in the fence where some of the intruders had made their escape, and nearby he discovered a discarded battery-powered angle-grinder.
The next statement was written by PC Andrew Schlegelmilch – he also carried out checks in and out of the building, and found some grinder cutting discs on the railway track.
PC Alex Jagne wrote a statement describing his arrival at the factory – there was smoke, paint on the walls, and slippery liquid on the floor. He helped remove a handcuffed male who then refused to stand, and so he dragged him outside. He also seized a GoPro camera that appeared to be streaming. Outside the factory he helped with searches.
PC Hamish Morgan’s statement described the initial officers’ call for assistance. When he arrived, he saw a security guard bleeding from the head. Inside, he saw smoke, and among the officers one appeared to have an injury. He helped to remove the arrestees and also untangled some Taser wires from a female. He also helped the injured female officer walk to an ambulance, and then took part in outside searches.
PC Jonathan Neale described seeing the prison van, and hearing alarms and seeing and smelling smoke. One officer needed assistance with handcuffs. He handcuffed two women, but also described that he became disorientated by the alarms, smoke, and what he thought was PAVA spray when he was near to Charlotte Head (one of the women).
After these statements, the court took a short afternoon break, and when they returned, Ms Gargitter told them they would now hear a series of ‘Agreed Facts’.
This comprised nearly twenty pages of information which the defence have not contested, and some of it overlaps with the prosecution’s sequence of events.
There were descriptions of things like ANPR sightings of vehicles, geo-location of phone calls, intercepted phone messages and so on. Then there were details of the arrests, recordings of various injuries sustained by Jordan Devlin, information about the workings of Cryptpad and Signal, and how Signal names were connected to individuals by seized phones, along with which GoPro cameras that were worn by them.
There are photos of other items found, including rucksacks, ropes, sledgehammers, crowbars, smoke flares, an angle grinder, a Palestinian flag.
There was medical evidence about officer Kate Evans’ injuries, which described her walking into the hospital unaided. An X-ray at first suggested there was no obvious acute bony injury, but a review three days later reported a fracture to the bony projection on the right side of a vertebra, known as the ‘transverse process’. It was described as a lateral displacement of a bone fragment in the lower back (L4 lumbar). The report said no treatment was required and PC Evans was told to take pain relief if required.
She complained of continued symptoms while receiving physiotherapy, and as a result a CT scan was ordered in November. This showed no bony injuries nor nerve compression. Irregularities and mild deformities were identified by an expert radioneurologist who confirmed the L4 fracture and the possibility of healed secondary fractures in L2 and L3 which were consistent with the sort of injury likely from a traffic accident or a fall. It was described as a stable fracture requiring conservative treatment with pain management and mobilisation. He expected full healing within 3 to 6 months and no long-term consequences from the injury.
This was followed by some information about PAVA spray – designed to minimise resistance. Causes closure and severe pain in eyes, causing tears, temporary blindness, nausea, coughing, spitting etc. lasting up to 15 minutes, but with no long-term effects.
There was a description of the footage supplied to police by Elbit personnel.
There was reference to how evidence of Cryptpads had been found on computers, and the searches that led to further evidence.
The afternoon ended with a reference to Mr Corner’s arrest, caution and subsequent interviews over several days in the presence of a solicitor, in which he gave no comment.
This had been an intense couple of hours of concentration on details for the jury and so around 4pm, the prosecution paused and they will conclude their case in the morning.
DAY SIX – Tuesday 21st April
Prosecution lawyer starts the day by reading out the last of the Agreed Facts. After adding a few evidence photographs to the jury bundle, he then reads out excerpts of questions and answers given by defendants from earlier proceedings. The first of these were from Ms Head’s previous evidence, which appeared to show her admit to intending to do as much damage as possible to destroy weapons.
Mr Corner’s previous evidence referred to smashing up the toilet to try and flood it, as well as an overhead fuse box – hoping it would disable the factory later. Leona Kamio’s evidence included reference to wanting to smash up as many drones as possible, and hoping to barricade themselves in and do as much damage to weapons as they could inside. Fatima Zainab Rajwani’s earlier evidence referred to the harm the weapons were going to do to people, and the main aim being to find drones and damage them. She agreed that footage showed her smashing up quadcopters, and opening black boxes with drones in them to smash them too. Zoe Rogers also said she found and smashed some of the drones up, then helped destroy computers.
Jordan Devlin gave a written defence statement prior to earlier proceedings and one excerpt of this was read to the jury as well.
These readings concluded the case for the defence and the jury were told to take a half hour break while a few more legal issues were discussed.
After the break, the defence case began with Rajiv Menon KC taking Ms Charlotte Head through her evidence-in-chief, beginning with her upbringing and background.
Ms Head (known generally as ‘Lottie’ to her friends) was born in Redditch and lived with parents and half-brother, going to school in Bromsgrove and getting decent A-levels but found studying hard and went to work as personal trainer for 9 months, before moving to France to study the language for a few months. She couldn’t afford to continue that course and moved to Paris where she worked as an English-speaking agency nanny.
Charlotte had no interest in politics at that stage, but then there were the Paris attacks and in 2016, lots of news about the Calais refugee camp ‘the Jungle’, so she decided to try and see what was going on, volunteering for a week at Easter. That turned into two weeks, and then she quit her job and carried on volunteering in Calais on and off, with regen breaks.
She returned to the UK and began a University of East Anglia International Development and NGO management course, but felt she wanted to do more practical work so returned to Calais and worked with refugees there for 3 years, mostly grassroots, free accommodation and food, with financial help from family and eventually a small stipend from charity. She was handing out clothes and shoes, and driving people to medical centres, then eventually co-ordinating Human Rights Observers for nearly a year. Menon shows an article in The Observer describing police brutality and hostile destruction, terrible conditions with illness and injuries, and violent evictions, based on a report co-researched by the group, which quoted Ms Head.
Ms Head described police attacks on her and her colleagues as well, and said her three years there had really affected her – she’d always been taught to care for people – for her it wasn’t political, it was really just to stop people being hurt. She left because she was traumatised – she’d seen a child’s eye shot out by police – and went to Brussels and got a flat as part of Citizens Accomodation organisation to help house homeless refugees.
Ended up in London, trying to find work in the charity sector, but without a degree, she ended up working as a bike courier until the pandemic. As lockdown ended she was working as a bike mechanic, and then moved to Wales with a partner, where she worked as a cycling journalist. In 2024 she was living again in London and managed to get a job as a Housing Advocate with a charity helping survivors of domestic abuse.
Mr. Menon handed the jury copies of pages from a notebook found by police at her home.
Ms Head explained there were notes on her training at the charity, including helping clients feel empowered, safeguarding meetings with multi-agency police, social services, council and so on, as well as responsibilities, children’s safeguarding, legal frameworks including potential protections in law.
Mr Menon asks for a break to raise a matter with the Judge.
—
The jury returns after 20 minutes or so, and Mr Menon hands out one more page of the notebook that had been mentioned earlier. There are some headings, that provide some context to the other notes.
Moving on, Mr Menon led Ms Head through her coming across a protest camp outside Hackney Town Hall in April 2024. After noticing the tents and Palestinian flags, she discovered they were trying to persuade Hackney Council to divest money from its pension fund away from Israeli companies and the arms trade. Ms Head spoke about signing up for shifts to help at the camp, staying there up to four nights a week. Menon asked if this was her first engagement re Palestine and she said she took part in marches from October 2023 onwards.
On 9th July she attended a meeting at Hackney Town Hall – there was a deputation to the Council about the arms investment, explaining why it was important, and how it would be possible for the Council to move its finances. She said that the council chairman simply read out a pre-made decision – and that it seemed like it was a farce. She felt hopeless – she’d marched, signed petitions, presented well-researched information, and explored every legal avenue, and it felt like the democratic process was a sham.
The barrister asked her to look back at everything she’d done over those several years and asked her to characterise it – Ms Head said that most of it had been anti-war, anti-violence in many different ways, and that she’d always felt some responsibility to try and reduce the suffering in the world. It had all felt like a plaster on things but not dealing with the underlying causes. The Palestine issue felt the same – asking again and again and again – she felt demoralised.
Mr Menon reminded the court that in his opening comments the judge had told the jury that the defendants were members of Palestine Action, and that Ms Heer had repeated that Ms Head was a member. Charlotte said it wasn’t a membership organisation as such. Mr Menon also reminded the jury that Palestine Action had been proscribed as a terrorist organisation, but that in February this was deemed by the High Court as unlawful. In the summer of 2024 it was perfectly lawful, and Ms Head explained that it was a non-violent direct action network, trying to shut down companies like Elbit, Raytheon and Leonardo, to try and stop arming Israel. By July 2024 there had been around 400 actions – some property damage, some rooftop occupations, dismantling weapons factories and so on. None of those actions involved violence against police or security guards.
Someone she knew from Calais had been involved in an action and that’s how she was aware of them. They also had hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, and that was where she signed up through a link to attend a training day near Finsbury Park at the end of May 2024.
She thought around thirty or forty people took part in the day-long event. She couldn’t remember speaking with any of the co-defendants there, though some may have attended. The organisers described what Palestine Action was about, its aims and so on, and she said it would have been clear that no violence was planned.
Ms Head described the differentiation of ‘overts’ and ‘coverts’, and in relation to her decision to take part, she was always planning to be arrestable as an ‘overt’. This was because she felt demoralised and saw so many terrible things happening, and felt she had to do whatever she could in an accountable way. She’d never been arrested before, so this was a major step to take. Ms Head said she didn’t feel like she had any choice – there were factories on British soil that were complicit in all this stuff.
She was told that in pretty much every instance before, almost everyone had been given bail, with just one person remanded for a while because they had had previous arrests.
At this point the prosecution counsel Ms Heer interrupted and asked for another legal discussion. As it was near lunchtime the jury were sent for their break.
—LUNCH BREAK
After the break, the evidence-in-chief continued with Ms Head describing how, after the meeting, she had been contacted in June and added to a Signal group. She said that information was provided very gradually on a ‘need to know’ basis. She raised a question about her DBS status, and was told ultimately it was up to employers to use their own discretion as to the consequences of any arrest. She felt her employers would be OK once they knew the circumstances.
Ms Head said she chose to take direct action because it seemed like no other channel was working, and the government was not listening, and they were up against such powerful financial interests.
There were online meetings leading up to the action to which the ‘overts’ were invited. The use of ‘coverts’ only came later on, and they never met until just before the action. The aim was always to close down the site. Ms Head knew there had been three sites permanently closed down in the UK already, so actions like these were successful.
Mr Menon asked her what she knew about the site and she said it was their newest site doing research and development to produce new weapons. She was also asked about the ‘pre-arrest form’ that Palestine Action supplied, and she said it was a standard thing they did and that she had completed one as asked.
The jury had already heard evidence that Ms Head went to Manchester to purchase the prison van, and she drove it to Bristol where she left it at a campsite (so it would be less conspicuous than parked out on a road) and then she went to the Air BnB. She didn’t contest any of that. She was shown images of her that were captured near the Filton site before the action, and she explained she’d gone to check the fences because she was concerned how large the van was, and she wanted to make sure it could get through the fence.
She’d agreed to be the driver of the van because she’d driven vans before in Calais, and after checking that no-one was likely to be hurt, she agreed to attempt to ram the fence and the loading bay shutter.
She was asked about who packed rucksacks and what was in them – things like the sledgehammers, first aid kit, ropes to help barricade and so on were packed, but it was all done for them and she didn’t know by whom.
Ms Head explained that primary objective that night was to destroy as many weapons as possible, try and shut down the factory and also get evidence of other companies like suppliers and so on that might be working with them. She was asked about ‘media roles’ and she said Mr Corner and Ms Rajwani were wearing streaming GoPros – the planning document focussed on needing clear documentation of product names, delivery information, companies they work with. Mr Menon read out instructions from the document of how the Go Pro users should pause for any bits of text or information to capture a readable frame, and gather intelligence as they go, but stay with the crew for safety and not get stuck on one binder or big document. “That being said, if there wasn’t diligent research into who materially contributes the most to Palestinian oppression, we would never have found Elbit systems, and Palestine action wouldn’t exist”.
Mr Menon asked Charlotte how much this had been discussed at the Airbnb – the gathering of intelligence on this company? She said that Elbit is targeted because they knew it makes 85% of Israeli drones, based on the intelligence found before – none of this was a ‘random act’. Mr Menon read out excerpts of Ms Head’s earlier testimony (from the Agreed Facts), and she was asked whether she stood by them. She replied she was telling the truth then and would do so now.
She described her expectation was that security would call police, police would call specialist police and they could be there for hours. In the end it all happened very differently and they were actually only there about twenty minutes. They were looking for military equipment and if they had no access to particular rooms, to try and flood it instead to cause damage (which is why Sam Corner smashed up the toilets).
Asked if she intended to damage property, Ms Head said, yes, but at the time she thought she had a lawful excuse to do so. She answered yes to a series of questions from her defence barrister, asking if she drove the van, smashed the fence, and drove into the shutter after it was weakened by an angle grinder. She admitted spraying paint over products, saying it was red paint to signify the blood of Palestinians. Shown photos in evidence she recognised parts from a ‘battle simulator’, video screens, quadcopters, drones, all of which she admitted trying to damage.
Asked about a security guard with an injury, she said she’d only been near one guard, Angelo Volante. Mr Menon also asked whether she hit anyone with a sledgehammer, and she said that she hadn’t and that she “had already been acquitted by a jury of aggravated burglary and violent disorder on that action”.
Next, Mr Menon introduced an unpixellated version of security footage (Mr Luke’s BWV) which showed the moment security guard Angelo Volante approached her and Ms Rajwani, screaming at them. She said it was impossible to forget and she was never more scared, thinking he was going to severely hurt her. Ms Head was shown with hands up as he approached, and diving to the floor when he told them to get down. Some of the PAVA spray used on Mr Corner had reached her face and she said that her only movement once down was to try and wipe that. She could hear screaming (Ms Kamio) but she was lying between two partitions and couldn’t see anything.
Ms Head was asked about the footage she’d streamed with Ms Rajwani that appeared on social media later. In it she asked if people could hear the screaming (without knowing what was going on) and then joked “You’ve been Pal-Actioned”. She described their state as being slightly hysterical, and the whole thing was like a joke at a funeral.
As Mr Menon began to ask Ms Head questions about her custody, the prosecution counsel Ms Heer interrupted, asking for a further discussion with the judge, and so the jury were sent out for a short break.
—
On their return, they heard Mr Menon ask Ms Head to confirm that the day after her arrest she was ‘rearrested on suspicion of committing a terrorism offence’, and then transported to counter-terror custody in London, but that at no point since has she ever been charged with any terrorist offence. He asked her how it had made her feel. Charlotte said it made no sense at all and didn’t tally even close to anything they’d done at Filton. She said it felt like the end of the world.
Ms Head said she was allowed a private consultation with a solitictor and then had the first of several interviews on the third or fourth day of custody. The solicitor suggested she remain silent and instead set out a prepared statement to answer the allegations (focussing on the allegations of being a terrorist and being violent). She said she was held ‘incommunicado’ in custody for eight days, before finally being charged, but she was never charged under the Terrorism Act.
Mr Corner’s defence lawyer Tom Wainwright then asked Ms Head to confirm it had been clear on the Palestine Action training day that there would be no violence against people on the action, and that its aim and purpose was specific and clear. Ms Head also explained that they were told security guards wouldn’t come in – on previous actions they had taken a look and then called the police – she trusted what she’d been told – in fact they brought cereal bars and juice and sandwiches (seen in evidence photos), because they thought they’d be there a long time. The plan was to stick together and make it seem like too much hassle for security.
She said she genuinely thought she’d be back at work in a week and there was clearly no plan for any violence.
Mr Wainwright referred to the CCTV video evidence that showed a guard walking out of shot and then back in, with someone screaming a lot out of shot in between. Ms Head said she thought the screams were her. She explained she had been faced with three large well-built men in kit, and she was terrified. Mr Wainwright showed her the photo of Mr Shaw’s injury and asked if she’d seen him in that state at the time. She said when she saw him, she was waving a smoke flare, and she was a couple of metres from him so didn’t really register any injury or blood.
The lawyer also asked about the footage the jury had seen of the final interaction with Mr Volante. It was after he had struck Mr Devlin’s neck or head with a sledgehammer. He left PC Buxton with Devlin and came round to where Ms Rajwani and Ms Head were and we see his face as he screams at them to get on the floor. She confirmed she had been near Mr Devlin (because she got some backdraft from the PAVA spray used on Mr Corner), and that Mr Volante had been aggressive throughout. She said he was terrifying – eyes bulging and red faced.
Andrew Morris, lawyer for Mr Devlin, had one final question, regarding the planning meeting back in May. He asked whether Mr Devlin had been at that. Ms Head confirmed that he wasn’t.
With no further questions from Ms Heer, that concluded Ms Head’s evidence.
There were two character witness statements read to the jury before they were discharged for the day. The first was by a humanitarian emergency responder, and the second by a filmmaker who has worked with major humanitarian organisation. Both statements were adduced in earlier proceedings, and you can find their summaries in our coverage here.
DAY SEVEN – Wednesday 22nd April
Following the statements read out yesterday, Judge Johnson addressed the jury on how they should approach the good character witness statements. In summary, it is relevant as a positive feature and may be taken into account when judging the veracity of their evidence. He also spoke about medical diagnoses of the next defence witness Sam Corner, who has an autism spectrum condition, ADHD and medical anxiety. He might appear pedantic – i.e. inference-based questions will be difficult for him. He may be slow and appear disengaged in answering questions. Eye contact and engagement can also be very difficult for him and he might be fidgety and require extra breaks too. The judge told the jurors not to hold against him the various ways these issues may emerge in his evidence.
Sam’s lawyer, Tom Wainwright, called Mr Corner to the witness stand. Compared to photos seen of him, he has a new short-haired look. He confirms his age as 23 and that he was 22 at the time of the incident. Asked what his intention was on the night of the incident, he replies that he wanted to shut the facility down for as long as possible, to stop their weapons causing death and devastation killing and injuring people. Asked whether he had any intention to cause violence, he said no, and that it certainly wouldn’t have helped the Palestine Action cause. He explained that the reason he hit someone was because he thought someone else was being badly hurt by security guards.
Mr Wainwright told him he was facing a charge of Grievous Bodily Harm, which means ‘really serious’ harm, and asked him whether he’d caused really serious harm – he accepted he caused serious harm, but didn’t know whether that was ‘really’ serious and said it was up to the jury to decide, but that he certainly didn’t intend to cause the injury that Kate Evans suffered. The lawyer also asked if Sam had ever been involved in a fight or used violence before – he said he hadn’t.
After these preliminary opening questions, Mr Wainwright took Sam through his background. He was raised in the south-west and went to a special mathematics school getting stellar A-levels and a place at Oxford University. Prior to that he’d also qualified for the UK team in the International Linguistics Olympiad where he won a gold medal. Mr Corner described that it involved spotting the different patterns that languages use – it had started in his early teens when his mother taught him some Turkish, and led to him inventing his own languages.
Sam described how he was helped by seeing numbers and words as colours (synesthesia), and if he gets to know someone he can communicate quite well, but is very anxious about trying to read emotions, and finds new situations and new people very uncomfortable.
The way Sam delivers his evidence confirms these observations – he appears stilted, quiet, and often confused. He has spent around 20 months in prisons, often under special measures including solitary confinement usually reserved for terrorists and most of it at high security Belmarsh. All this despite never been found guilty of any offence yet, never being charged with any terrorism-related offence, and much of it on remand before even facing a trial. He said it had taken a toll on his memory. He said ultimately he was not good at thinking on his feet, or facing unplanned scenarios.
Mr Wainwright asked about Mr Corner’s engagement with Palestine. He had been on some of the solidarity marches and also got involved with a university encampment, volunteering by showing people around and so on, but said the university basically ignored their demands and were more intent on removing the camp than engaging with them. He was asked when he first knew about Palestine Action, and said he’d seen a video on YouTube of their first action in 2020. He saw other actions and knew they sometimes occupied arms factories, but had never seen any actions involving violence towards people.
After hearing about it from friends, Mr Corner confirmed he’d attended a Finsbury Park meeting in June 2024 and it had been broadly similar to the one Ms Head described yesterday. He described how actions were categorised as ‘high level’, such as damaging weapons or occupying factories, or ‘low level’ such as blockading the gates and so on. Like the others, he had volunteered to take part as an ‘arrestable’ in a high-level plan.
At that time Mr Corner had just finished his university degree and was planning to work and apply for a Masters course.
Mr Wainwright reminded the jury that the Crown are not alleging that Mr Corner had any intention to injure anyone at the time he entered the factory, so moved on to the action planning in broad strokes. As we’ve heard before, there was obviously no plan to use violence against persons, and the expectation based on multiple previous experience was that security would not get involved but rather call police. There was no suggestion they would come onto the factory floor and get involved.
Mr Corner was also asked what he knew about the Go Pro he wore. He said it was being streamed to a remote location and he had never had access to it. Mr Wainwright quotes a message found by police on the Go Pro Signal group that tells people the group is disbanding and warning everyone to urgently delete all images and footage they may have downloaded.
Sam Corner was also asked what his expectation of prison was. Like others, he believed that because he had no previous convictions or arrests he would likely be held in custody for a short time and then released on bail pending a trial.
Mr Corner agreed that he had travelled from the Air BnB in a van to the campsite, and then sat in the front of the prison van for the journey to the factory. Mr Wainwright tried to play some video of the entry to the factory, but the court system again had technical issues and a short break was called.
When the video was finally played, we heard Mr Corner say “Oh my God, we’ve got in!” and his lawyer asked how he was feeling at the time. Sam said he was daunted by the huge size inside, and there weren’t exactly any signs pointing to where the drones were. He said he began to help Zoe smash some boxes on a rack of shelves, and then Mr Luke came in.
Mr Wainwright wanted to play some footage and again there were problems with the equipment.
Once sorted, we saw the sequence where Mr Luke is seen walking out of camera shot, then we hear some screaming and shouting, and then he walks back across, followed by some of the red team. Mr Corner is asked to describe what happened. He confirms that one of the voices we hear is him, but that he can’t recall exactly what happened – he was really overwhelmed at this point. He remembers Mr Luke leaving through a door.
Next we see Mr Shaw’s BWV. It shows the guard raising his umbrella up and down and approaching Mr Corner, Ms Kamio and Ms Head. They are shouting at him to ‘fuck off’ and ‘get out’, and Corner remembers this – they just wanted him to leave. He’s heard saying that he is concussed, and Ms Kamio says “You’re bleeding”. Mr Corner says they wanted him to leave so they could get on and do what they were there for – damage weapons – and because they were scared what he might do to them. Sam is heard saying “You’ve only got a fucking umbrella” and explains that must have been because Shaw as raising it at them and was potentially going to use it on them.
Mr Corner is having a lot of difficulty speaking clearly, and Mr Wainwright suggests he tries to focus his gaze on the wall behind the jury. The lawyer asks Corner if after seeing the clip, he can remember any more clearly how he was feeling. He says he was panicking. Shown the next footage frame by frame, although Sam Corner says he can’t now remember what was happening, his lawyer points out his sledgehammer is pointed down at the floor, and that then he raises it. But this is at the moment we also see Mr Shaw lift his umbrella up, and Sam brings the hammer down to hit the umbrella. Mr Corner says he can’t remember how much of it he actually saw, but it looks as though Shaw raises the umbrella several times as if to hit, and Corner says that he wouldn’t have been trying to injure Shaw.
The following clip shows Ms Rogers and Mr Corner shouting at Shaw to leave – Shaw says he can’t open the security door, so Corner shouts “Come this way” and leads him in the direction of the shutter entrance.
The next section shows Mr Corner has gone into the toilet and is trying to smash it up. There is no dispute, he agrees he was trying to cause a flood, to close the factory as long as possible and halt weapons manufacture, but he said it wasn’t very effective because the water was going down a drain. It’s not very successful as he also gets stuck in there for a while because Mr Shaw locks him in. Eventually he smashes his way out, breaks a glass panel, and then tries to smash an overhead fuse box. He explains again that he’s hoping by damaging the fuses he’ll put the factory out of operation for longer.
We now reach the moment when police arrive, and Mr Corner says he didn’t realise that they were police for a considerable time. Mr Wainwright asked if Sam had seen PC Adams Tasering Leona Kamio. Mr Corner said he hadn’t seen that, and also wasn’t certain whether he’d seen Mr Volante attack Jordan Devlin.
Mr Wainwright asked if it was ever part of the plan to assault police, and Mr Corner explained that as ‘arrestables’ the plan was to be arrested.
Returning to video evidence, Mr Corner is seen just after being hit in the eyes with PAVA spray, and he turns and walks away. He says he remembered his eyes were closed and he had intense pain in his face and hands. Mr Wainwright plays the video just before that again, showing when Volante thrusts his sledgehammer at the neck and face of Jordan Devlin, and we see Sam Corner swing his own sledgehammer, apparently making contact with Volante’s hammer. Asked about this, he says he thinks he was trying to knock the hammer out of Volante’s hand.
The next sequence shows when PC Buxton and Mr Devlin have slipped to the ground. Sam says that although he’s been shown the footage many times since, he’s very confused about what he actually remembers he was thinking at the time. He’s not even sure what he knew when he was at the police station later, let alone 20 months on. He thinks his eyes were open again by then, but he didn’t think he knew it was police who had arrived. On the footage we hear Ms Kamio screaming and shouting “You’re fucking hurting me”, and Sam Corner moves towards her. The alarm is going, there’s a chemical smell – Corner describes his state as overwhelmed. He thought he could see Zoe Rogers and thought that it was her being attacked.
His evidence and his memory are very confused and he has trouble speaking about it. He recalls knowing he had to do something to help, but says that he really wouldn’t have intended to injure anyone. Again he repeats everything was very overwhelming, and Mr Wainwright reminds the court that he doesn’t react well to stressful situations.
The judge agrees to a short break.
When they resume, Mr Corner is asked a bit more about the incident with Sgt Evans. He says the floor was very slippery and so he didn’t have much balance. He didn’t have much control and says he was not aiming for the police officer’s back. He couldn’t remember why he brought the sledgehammer down a second time. We’ve seen in the footage that it looks as though it landed between Evans and Ms Rogers. The following clip shows PC Adams shouting “Taser, Taser” and firing at Mr Corner, who turns towards him. Again, Mr Corner is unclear about this moment – he assumes he turned because he heard the shout, but he is seen raising a hand to his eyes again, and when Sgt Buxton tackles him, we see him wincing with his eyes closed once more.
The last clip covers his arrest, but Mr Corner says he simply can’t remember that moment.
Mr Wainwright mentions PC Evans’ evidence of their conversation when she was checking his handcuffs – that he said he accused her of protecting a company that was committing violence abroad. He said he could remember saying something like that but not the exact words, and also confirmed that he’d said he was “trying to protect her” (Zoe) when the officer asked why he’d hit her. He explained he thought it was Zoe Rogers at the time, but knows now that it was Leona Kamio. He also told Mr Wainwright that he wasn’t sure at what point he realised police had arrived, as opposed to security.
Next, the lawyer asked about the ensuing police interviews and arrests. Sam was interviewed three or four times, and arrested under the Terrorism Act. He had several different solicitors, all of whom told him to give no comment interviews. He was isolated for several days, without a single phone call to his family. He was also arrested for Grievous Bodily Harm, and said that had shocked him, because he never meant to harm anyone. It was all surreal.
This concluded Mr Corner’s evidence in chief, and to begin her prosecution cross-examination, Ms Heer immediately picked up where they had left off. She asked Mr Corner whether he was shocked he’d been arrested for GBH. He said yes of course. She said “Did you not think that having smashed Sergeant Evans over the back with a sledgehammer, that you might be arrested for causing her grievous bodily harm?” He replied that he was still trying to process it.
Ms Heer referred to the jury bundle and photos and description of the sledgehammer, and asked Mr Corner to confirm it was designed to cause ‘really serious damage’ to things, and that he’d used it to smash things up at the factory, including the toilet. He agreed, but added he had to hit it multiple times, and that he hadn’t been able to do much damage to the fuse box.
Ms Heer persevered and said he must have realised that hitting someone with it would cause really serious injury. Mr Corner agreed that if asked while he was calm, then obviously he would agree, but at the time he was panicking, in pain from the pepper spray. Ms Heer said that when he entered the factory, he would have known hitting someone with a sledgehammer would cause serious injury and asked if it was something he’d have forgotten. Corner replied that he hadn’t thought about hitting anyone with a hammer as it wasn’t part of any plan, and it’s not something you WOULD think about if you weren’t in a desperate situation with no time to think.
Again, Ms Heer said that in general, on entering the factory he’d know that swinging a hammer at someone would likely break bones. He agreed, but said that he hadn’t been thinking about that.
Ms Heer referred to the medical evidence and pointed out the fracture injuries and how long PC Evans was off work, then asked Mr Corner whether he thought he had caused her ‘really serious harm’. Mr Corner said that the jury would have to decide if it met that threshold, and Ms Heer asked him what his own opinion was. She asked whether when the jury assesses his evidence that he did not intend really serious bodily harm, would they have to take into account the fact that he had no opinion on that?
Mr Wainwright stood and said this was rather a difficult and convoluted question.
Ms Heer told Mr Corner if he didn’t understand a question he must say – he did. She rephrased, saying the jury had to decide whether the harm was ‘really serious’ and asking Sam to help them by giving his own opinion. He still seemed confused, but responded that he hadn’t meant to cause serious harm at all.
The prosecutor reminded Mr Corner he’d just been hitting things with the hammer with the intention of damaging them, and that he’d expected to be arrested by the police at some point, but that he’d told the jury he hadn’t expected security to get involved at all. He agreed. So when they did come in, he was surprised and panicked – she asked if there had been any discussion about what to do if they HAD come in.
Mr Corner said he thought they’d just talked about shouting at security if they saw them, and there was certainly no conversation about hitting things out of their hands with sledgehammers.
Noticing the time, Ms Heer asked if this was a good moment to take a break for lunch, and the jury were told to return at 2pm.
At the start of the afternoon Mr Wainwright tells the court that Mr Corner is having a great deal of difficulty, having not slept – the court has seen him finding it harder and harder to concentrate. The judge asks the jury to return in half an hour, during which time more assessments are made.
On their return, the judge tells the jurors that Mr Corner is not feeling his best, and that having spoken to all involved the decision is to give him time to try and get a good night’s sleep, as it’s very important that he be allowed to give his best possible evidence, so the jury is discharged until 10am the following morning.
DAY EIGHT – Thursday 23rd April
After discussing some legal issues, the trial resumes with Ms Heer’s cross-examination of Sam Corner, but this is quickly derailed by technical issues with the video playback. After another break this is partly resolved, but viewers and journalists viewing over internet on CVP link also experience interruptions. These issues have emerged several times over the course of the trial and essentially the system is not fit for purpose.
Eventually the first sequence – Mr Corner’s interaction with security guard Patrick Luke – is shown once more. Ms Heer has just one question – when Mr Luke arrived, did Mr Corner want him to leave so that they could get on with damaging the factory. Sam responded yes, but that he couldn’t remember how Mr Luke had behaved towards them and that this could have been a second reason.
The next sequence was the encounter with Mr Shaw, and after it is shown, Ms Heer suggests that Shaw was no threat at all. Mr Corner said that Shaw had an umbrella he was raising towards them. The prosecutor said that Shaw was bleeding. Corner couldn’t remember whether he saw that at the time, but he heard Ms Kamio mention it in the clip. Ms Heer referenced a statement that Mr Corner made in earlier proceedings – “I remember seeing him with a bleeding head in that corner of the factory by the holding bay.” Sam Corner had also said that Shaw didn’t seem scary and looked like he needed medical attention. She asked again whether Sam wanted Shaw to leave so they could carry on damaging property and she suggested he was no threat.
Mr Wainwright stood and pointed out that she had now asked his client this several times.
Mr Corner said he hadn’t expected to interact with guards like this and was confused and overwhelmed. Ms Heer said he looked confident telling Mr Shaw to follow him and showing the way out. Sam replied that he was trying to appear confident but he was not.
Ms Heer then shows more footage and continues to ask Mr Corner if Mr Shaw was posing a threat. Corner is seen raising his sledgehammer and he says he thinks he was going to try and knock the umbrella out of Shaw’s hand because he was frightened what he might do with it. She quotes Corner saying “You’ve only got a fucking umbrella” and asks him what he meant by it.
Defence lawyer Mr Wainwright intervenes again asking for the question to be framed in a way more suitable for someone on the autistic spectrum. Judge Johnson tells the witness to answer the question. The lawyer says that he is simply making sure that questions are fair, as is his role. The judge tells Ms Heer to ask it again, and she changes it to “Why did you say those words?” Mr Corner responds that he was trying to discourage Mr Shaw.
Ms Heer suggests he said it because he knew Shaw presented no threat to anyone, and he wanted the guard to leave so they could continue damaging property. The prosecutor asked whether Mr Corner had seen Shaw hit anyone with the umbrella within the factory. He said he hadn’t but was worried he might.
When a little more of the sequence is played we hear Ms Rogers ask Shaw whether he is OK, because she has seen he is bleeding. Mr Corner thinks he remembers this, but doesn’t seem sure.
The next video shows Mr Corner move away and over to where Mr Luke has come in and just had some interaction with Ms Kamio. She is moving away from him, and Mr Corner arrives apparently prodding his sledgehammer out towards Mr Luke. This seems like an indication for him to leave. Ms Heer asks if Luke was any threat at this moment, and Mr Corner says he had gone over there because there was some commotion and Mr Luke had been wrestling with Ms Kamio.
Ms Heer agrees that Ms Kamio and Mr Luke had been struggling over a sledgehammer but at that moment she says he was no threat and was backing away. Mr Corner concedes that eventually he was, yes.
Ms Heer asks if Mr Corner heard Mr Luke say that the police had been called and whether he expected them to arrive soon. She referred to planning documents that said the police station was nearby, but Mr Corner said they had packed some food and expected to occupy for a while. She asked him again if he was ‘overwhelmed and anxious’. He said it was relative but that he was much more overwhelmed later.
After a few minutes break, during which there were some more legal points raised, the jury returned and Ms Heer moved on to the time that Mr Corner was in the toilet area. In the following exchange it emerged he went in there to try and cause a flood, he thought Mr Shaw had locked him in, and in trying to smash the door lock he actually ended up locking himself in for a while. Also the flooding didn’t work because the area had a shower drain. Ms Heer asked if he felt angry and frustrated that he couldn’t damage Elbit’s weapons. He said he just wanted to block the drain and get out, and eventually he smashed the door open, and also hit a glass panel as he went over towards ‘Zone 2’ where the action with the police officers occurred.
Ms Heer pauses the next video clip (PC Buxton’s BWV) and points out Sam standing next to Ms Head who has a fire extinguisher. Mr Devlin has just dropped a sledgehammer and slipped onto the floor. Mr Corner is holding a sledgehammer. As the video plays, we see Mr Volante move towards Mr Devlin and hit him in the neck or face with the handle of his sledgehammer. Devlin falls back down and we see Sam Corner swing his hammer towards the guard. Ms Heer asks what Corner was trying to do and he replies that he wanted to hit the sledgehammer out of Volante’s hand because he’d just seen him hit Devlin with it.
Ms Heer asked if Mr Corner realised the police had arrived, and he said he didn’t know they were police at the time. Although Ms Heer says Buxton’s uniform says ‘police’ on it, Mr Corner maintains that although his eyes hadn’t been sprayed yet, he still didn’t realise, because the uniforms looked similar to the security outfits.
The next footage shows Mr Corner turning away, with his hand to his face, after receiving the PAVA spray. Yesterday, Sam had described feeling an ‘all-consuming pain’, and Ms Heer refers again to testimony given in earlier proceedings in which Sam referred to the pain like nettle stings. She asked him which was correct, and he replied both. The nettles were an analogy because it felt like little barbs in specific places but like a chemical all over.
Ms Heer asks why Mr Corner doesn’t just keep walking away. He says the guards had been so aggressive and he was worried especially for the women in the group. Ms Heer asked if Sam thought they were complicit with Elbit. He answered yes, but was more worried about his friends. Ms Heer continued this line of questioning, reminding him that Sgt Evans had quoted him telling her she was complicit in violence abroad. Corner said that when he still thought she was Elbit security, he did think that yes. She asked whether he thought ALL the police were as responsible as Elbit. He said that while he thought they were guards working for Elbit, yes, but obviously not the same as the CEO. She asked whether that’s why he hit them. He said he didn’t like them hitting all of us.
Moving on, the barrister showed the footage where Mr Corner appears to swing his sledgehammer down towards PC Buxton who is struggling on the floor with Mr Devlin. Buxton’s hand is raised. Next we see Devlin has separated from Buxton and is kneeling, and Corner swings down again. Ms Heer says Buxton has his radio in one hand, nothing in the other and that he claims he was hit because he felt immediate pain. Mr Corner says he really can’t remember what was happening at this moment but knew Buxton was a big man who had been struggling with Devlin. Ms Heer said he was defenceless at this moment, and Corner agrees he couldn’t have stopped a sledgehammer.
Next Mr Corner is seen walking towards Sgt Evans with his sledgehammer on his shoulder. She’s facing away, on all fours on the ground, and Ms Heer says her uniform has the word ‘police’ on the back. She says Mr Corner brings the hammer down on the officer’s back, and then raises it and brings it down a second time.
Ms Heer says that Sam didn’t shout any warning, and that Evans was facing away. She reminded Mr Corner that he had said he heard either Ms Kamio or Ms Rogers screaming but wasn’t sure which. She said Ms Kamio was down behind some furniture, so playing the video again, Zoe Rogers and Officer Evans would be in Corner’s line of sight. He said he couldn’t be sure as his vision was blurry. She suggested he’d see Zoe wasn’t being attacked. Sam said it was wasn’t what he thought at the time. Ms Heer asked whether he didn’t think to check? She suggested the truth was that he knew Rogers and Kamio had been arrested by this point.
Ms Heer wanted to check some timings on the video and it was suggested the court take a short break again.
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On the jury’s return, Ms Heer plays PC Adam’s BWV footage. Mr Corner is about to walk towards PC Buxton and Adams has his Taser pointed at Ms Kamio and shouts ‘Taser, Taser’. Mr Corner says he can’t remember whether he saw PC Adams with the Taser, but that he didn’t know whether security guards were allowed to have Tasers or not. Again, Ms Heer points out that Adams has the word ‘police’ on his uniform, but Mr Corner thinks it must have been small writing. He maintains that at the point, all he knew was that someone had run in, shouted the warning and then tackled Ms Kamio to the ground.
Ms Heer says that Mr Corner was expecting to be arrested at some point and asks if he’d received any instructions about that. Mr Corner agreed and said that ‘going floppy’ was discussed – i.e. making yourself a dead weight – this means more manpower is required, and others may be able to continue with the protest longer.
Ms Heer pointed out that the same delay could be achieved by active resistance and suggested the jury will decide if that was what Ms Kamio was doing, but moved on to Corner’s arrest and suggested he was resisting. He said he was panicking and uncomfortable. The prosecutor said he was told to take his hand out of his pocket, was ordered to put his hands behind his back and told to stay down, but he tried to stand. Mr Corner said it was all because his face was still burning.
Heer asked whether Mr Corner now agreed that Sgt Evans was not harming Ms Kamio at the time he hit her. He agreed that now he could see that on the video, and Ms Heer said it was up to a jury to decide what he knew then, but suggested that the truth was that he was intending to cause the officer really serious harm. Ms Heer proposed that he had hit Evans because he thought she was an Elbit security guard and was complicit, and that there was no need to protect Ms Rogers or Ms Kamio. Mr Corner replied No. Asked if he thinks it was unreasonable to hit Sgt Evans, he responded that if he’d thought about what he was going to do, then yes.
Ms Heer then moved on to Mr Corner’s decision not to answer questions in custody and asked whether it was a general instruction from Palestine Action. He said that it was, but that the terrorism charge was a very different scenario and he was doing what his solicitor suggested. Ms Heer confirmed that the plan was to make no comment anyway.
With no further questions from the prosecution Mr Wainwright rises to clarify a couple of points with Mr Corner. He points out that Ms Heer has taken Sam through some things he said in previous evidence, and also some things he might infer from seeing the footage now. He asks Sam how easy or hard he finds it to distinguish between three things: what he actually remembers, what he’s seen on the footage, and what he infers from seeing the footage (i.e. “I must have been thinking this”). Mr Corner agrees that it’s very hard to distinguish a lot of the time.
Mr Wainwright asks how many times Sam has seen these clips – he said at least a dozen. And the lawyer also asks whether it was easier or harder to distinguish those things this time compared to when he gave evidence before. He says although he’s seen the footage many more times, it’s still hard.
That was the end of Mr Corner’s evidence and he returned to the dock.
It was nearing lunchtime, but there was a pause and the jury sent out for some brief legal discussion, and then Judge Johnson had them brought back in to address them before the break.
He referred to a number of people protesting outside the court and told the jurors it was important to ignore them and to ignore anything written on their banners. He reminded them that it was their job to try the case on what they heard inside the court and according to legal directions that he would give them, not on the basis of any signs or on anything people outside might tell them. He added that although there was no reason to suggest they would, if anyone approached them they should tell the court immediately. He added that they should not hold any of these issues against the defendants.
For context, we note there have been peaceful protests outside the court throughout this trial and earlier proceedings. Police decided for some reason to put in place a Section 14 order this morning which, according to protesters, prohibited demonstrations within a mile of the court.
Earlier this morning two people were arrested after sitting in silence outside the court entrance with signs that said “Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience” and “Jurors deserve to hear the whole truth”. One of the sign-holders was Trudi Warner.
Real Media has given considerable coverage to her previous similar actions, and her win in the High Court after being prosecuted by the Attorney General. The judge in that hearing was Justice Saini, who described the attempt to prosecute her as “fanciful” and so established her right to hold her placard in silence, confirming a jury’s right to reach a verdict according to their conscience. Read our full coverage of Trudi’s campaign and vindication here.
The full High Court judgement made clear that her original arrest was not only unlawful but may also have breached her human rights [Article 10(1)].
Despite what appeared to be an identical silent action this morning at Woolwich, officers went ahead and enforced the Section 14 order.
Section 14 of the Public Order Act 2023 states that conditions on protest can only lawfully be put in place by a senior police officer when they believe an assembly may cause serious public disorder, serious damage to property, serious disruption to the life of the community, intimidation of others, or serious noise-related impact.
Ms Warner and her friend were sitting in silence with their banners.
LUNCH BREAK
After lunch, Mr Wainwright read out three good character references relating to Sam Corner. Two of these were the same as were given in earlier proceedings and can be found here.
A third was from a PhD student at Imperial College London who had been friends with Sam since sixth form. It described his kindness and empathy, and their continued friendship while studying at rival universities Oxford and Cambridge, giving a consistent and long-term view of his character. During his time in prison, Sam has worked in a charity helping other inmates with English, and this is an example of his desire to support those around him, even to the extent of giving money to homeless people while surviving on a student loan. Again, even while in prison, Sam has helped his friend with phone calls of emotional support. He is a long-time vegan with strong ethical values, extending to stressing about the effects of his actions and words on other people. The reference ended saying that Sam is an incredibly intelligent man with a strong sense of morals – a remarkable individual who has touched the lives of friends, families and many others with his kindness.
Next on the witness stand was Ms Leona Kamio, and her barrister Ms Mira Hammad asked her questions for her evidence-in-chief. She told the court she was born in 1995 and is generally known as “Ellie”. She says that she accepts she took part in a direct action at Filton and is asked ‘in a sentence’ to explain why. She replies that she had no other option to not do what she could to stop people suffering.
Asked about her upbringing, Ms Kamio said she was born in Wales and brought up in a loving family. Her mum was a nurse, then a homeopath, then charity worker and ran a company hiring out birthing pools. Her father was a drummer. Although Ellie never had any interactions with police there was a family story about serious mistreatment and abuse at the hands the police of an aunt, so she had an ingrained mistrust.
After A-levels at school, she went to London and did casual work and then found a job as a social media manager for Vice. She was singing in a band and they signed to Island Records and played festivals around the UK, including Lovebox. She also remembers they performed a fundraiser for Palestine, because one of the band had been to Palestine and saw what was going on there. After a couple of years one of the band members left, and the band collapsed, so Ellie went travelling for a while and then returned to Wales just as Covid hit, but she managed to land a traineeship studying farming.
After three years she wanted to get back into music and went to live in London, but then found a job there as a forest school nursery teacher. This had a profound impact – the children were 2-4 years old and she felt a lot of responsibility in forming their perceptions of life and nature.
Ellie was following Palestine Action on Instagram (they had hundreds of thousands of followers at that time), and she joined a mailing list. In March 2024, she had an email claiming the group had managed to close down one of Elbit Systems’ subsidiary factories, EliteKL in Tamworth, following a campaign of protests and direct actions including rooftop occupations, dismantling camera systems, and drenching the building in blood red paint. Real Media covered this news at the time. [Our film was made before Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation and does not suggest support for terrorism in any way]. The email invited readers to sign up for a training day, which Ms Kamio did.
Ms Hammad asked her to describe in headline terms what she learnt on the day. Ellie said they’d been told what Elbit Systems does, how Israel enforces apartheid and some history of ‘direct action’, as well as the goals of Palestine Action and how they were achieving them.
The barrister asked if there was any reference to violence and referred her to the planning document that listed potential charges activists might face. Ellie said that when she chose to put herself up for a ‘high-level arrestable’ action, she was told she’d likely be charged with criminal damage. She asked the organisers about her DBS status, and was told that as long as there was no suggestion of dishonesty or violence, that it would likely be up to the discretion of an employer as to whether it would be an issue.
Ms Hammad took Ellie to the Sequence of Events and asked why she had googled red boiler suits. (She said she’d never worn one and wanted to know what size). Ms Kamio said she wasn’t told much detail about the action because the organisers were concerned about undercover police. The Filton site was described as a key research and development site worth £25million and it had been opened by the Israeli ambassador, so a ‘really big deal’.
The Sequence mentioned a message to her mum about the possibility of arrest. She explained she’d planned to see her family in her holiday and was letting her know she might be held for a couple of days.
Another set of messages referred to homeopathic remedies for nerves, and searches she made about whether she was allowed remedies and vitamins etc in custody. She explained she’d been brought up to take a lot of supplements regularly.
Police had evidence of Ms Kamio searching the word ‘recce’ on the internet. She said just wanted to know what ‘recce’ was and how to spell it, because it wasn’t a word she knew, and it had been mentioned in a meeting. She said she had nothing to do with the ‘Filton recce’ mentioned in a planning document, but that before going to Bristol she’d watched a public YouTube video of an ‘auditor’ flying a drone over the Filton site.
Ellie confirmed she went to Bristol after a party that had been planned a long time before, and she’d had very little sleep because of her nerves. She just wanted to go to bed when she got to the Air BnB. She didn’t really know people there, but was told they’d be getting up early and so she went to bed.
The next morning, because she had a car, she went with Charlotte Head to go and check the fence at Filton and she measured the distance between struts and the distance from the kerb. She also admitted driving people later to create a hole in the fence, and that she went to collect the Enterprise van. By the afternoon she was concerned she hadn’t had slept, and so she tried to nap a little.
During the evening there was a meeting to run through the plan on a projector. She was finding it hard – lots of people, and some vaping. People were concerned whether the van would make it onto the site, and they spent a long time on contingencies.
The red team went to a separate room and discussed individual roles. Ellie was asked to wear the GoPro, but it was a very important part of the action to stream and to gather evidence, so she wasn’t confident. Her role instead was to barricade with rope and gorilla tape, but it turned out that the open nature of the warehouse and the lack of handles on doors scuppered that.
She said they were all nervous about security and Ellie suggested if security approached them they should shout a lot and make them feel like it was too much hassle and instead call the police. She said that what is seen in the footage is out of character – she recalled her mum telling her a story about someone trying to mug her and that in response she ran into the middle of the road and screamed and shouted at him. She learnt if ever threatened by a man not to show any weakness. Ms Hammad asked if there was a plan to do any more than shouting – she said no.
In the evening she drove the red team to the campsite and got into the prison van. She’d been told to sit in the front-right cubby-hole where there would be a bag with her ropes, gorilla tapes and other equipment already packed.
Ellie said she’d never done anything like that before in her life and was terrified and she was conscious that she was very tired too, but felt it was really necessary to carry on and try and stop the harm. Working with children, she’d have put any damage to property ahead of their lives – there’s nothing more important than stopping children being blown up.
After getting in to the factory, she’d pushed over some shelves, but they were all feeling overwhelmed – Fatema thought she had whiplash from the van’s impact, the lights were bright and the factory was all unexpectedly open-plan, not separate rooms.
She could hear Ms Head screaming – she was in the distance on the floor in front of a security guard. The guard was Mr Luke. He left the area after Ellie screamed ‘fuck off’ at him. She explained that she thought he’d try to hurt them.
She was walking back to her rucksack to exchange her sledgehammer for something else smaller, but then saw Mr Shaw charging towards them, looking enraged and raising his umbrella to hit them. She remembered he shouted something at them but she didn’t know what. At first she backed away, then felt safer when others were near her, so moved forward and screamed for him to leave too, but at that point she saw he was injured.
Ms Hammad asked her why she used the phrase “it’s not worth your pay grade” and she replied it was simply because she’d heard someone else say it earlier – she described it as meaning ‘leave it to the police’. Mr Shaw’s demeanour had changed and she realised he was concussed and she also said ‘You’re literally bleeding’, and then asked him if he was Welsh. She told the court that she wasn’t being particularly rational, but she’d heard his accent and thought it might be a way to ease the situation.
Ms Hammad then plays the available footage of the interaction with Angelo Volante. Ellie says this happened soon after – she saw other commotion and remembered that they’d agreed they should stick together.
Ms Hammad pointed out that in the alcove there is apparently no available camera coverage. Ms Kamio says that Mr Volante had a sledgehammer and looked like he would hurt them. She said he was the most frightening guard, looking like he was ‘up for a fight’. She said that later on he had an angle grinder and a hammer in his hands and appeared psychotic, swinging at them. Ms Hammad plays a clip that shows Volante with those items. Ms Kamio says she was in awe of Mr Devlin, who was doing his best to de-escalate the situation, and eventually Mr Volante did leave.
The next clip played to the court showed Ms Kamio’s interaction with Mr Luke. By this point, Ellie was aware she hadn’t done anything they’d set out too – instead a string of guards were attacking them. The company advertises its employees as “the backbone of the Israeli military” and she said she was worried what the guards might do. She said she was protective of Ms Rajwani because she was so young and so small, and it seemd like yet another guard was coming to attack them, so she ran towards Mr Luke, but he didn’t move, and instead grabbed the sledgehammer which she was carrying on her shoulder.
Ms Hammad reminds Ellie that on the BWV footage Mr Luke accuses her of committing criminal damage and that the prosecution claim she replies “that’s what we’re fucking doing man”. Ms Kamio says first of all she didn’t think what they were doing was criminal, and that she believes it was actually Ms Head’s voice that is heard, and she was saying “what the fuck are you doing man?”, reminding the court that Mr Luke had just grabbed the sledgehammer and was pushing her down to the ground.
The next clip shown is from the low frame rate camera but it does indeed appear to show her on the ground grappling with Mr Luke over a sledgehammer. She explains she didn’t want to let go because she was worried what he’d do with it.
Ms Hammad asked next about Ms Kamio’s arrest. In a statement which she gave in earlier proceedings, Ms Kamio is quoted as saying that she was ‘smashing up computers’. Ellie told the court that her main focus in going to Elbit was the drones they make, and the computers run AI software that guide killer swarms of drones and repeatedly target children, so she felt it would be effective to smash them. She said she had a little rhythm going with Zoe where she’d smash and Zoe would spray to make sure they were damaged.
Ms Kamio denied PC Adams’ allegation that she’d raised her hammer to hit Mr Volante, as he entered. She said it was already raised to strike another computer and she was simply turning as the men ran in towards her. She also said that the object she picked up from the desk was probably a computer mouse, and she was just trying to break one last thing and threw it at the floor. She was sorry if it hit the officer’s leg.
She said that after being Tasered she fell and smacked her chin on the floor – she was in shock and thought she had the right to be handcuffed at the front rather than the back. She still had barbs in her and Adams was rolling her around on the barbs, then stood on her while pulling her up and yet telling her to stay on the floor. She said she wasn’t trying to resist address, but was in pain and frightened and was screaming because of that.
Ms Hammad asked what happened when the Taser was discharged again. She was already handcuffed by then, when the shock went through her, and she also was under the impression the officer had Tasered one of the other police officers, because she’d seen them fall to the ground, so she called him an ‘asshole’ and said “You’ve just Tasered your mate”.
After the arrest, in police custody Ms Kamio couldn’t remember what she was first arrested for, but Ms Hammad reminded her she was also arrested under terrorism offences.
A medical report handed to the jury described Ellie’s injuries, which included a scratch and bruise to chin, a Taser wound to her right arm and right hip, and a sledgehammer hit to right hand, which caused purple and black bruising, significant swelling and possible fracture. Ms Kamio thinks it might have occurred during the interaction with Mr Luke. She also had bruising to her left thigh and elbow.
She gave no comment interviews to the police because it had always been the plan, but she said she also had five different solicitors for various interviews after the terrorism charge, and they all recommended her to do that.
When the jury returned after a few minutes break, Mr Wainwright asked Ms Kamio whether she was actively resisting arrest, and she said all the training told them NOT to resist, but that they COULD go floppy. She said it was just to occupy the space for longer as it would just take longer to remove them, and disagreed with what Mr Corner had said, that it was so that others could go on smashing things. The lawyer also asked if her screaming was fake. Ellie replied that the screams were certainly not fake – she pointed out she’d failed drama at school.
Ms Emma Gargitter cross-examined Ms Kamio for the prosecution, and began with two things she said she thought Ms Kamio would agree with – that she went to the site intending to cause damage to property and that she DID cause damage that night.
Ellie said “I believe that I caused damage to weapons or technology that would be used to commit… I don’t think I’m allowed to finish that sentence”. She continued by describing she was looking for Magni X and Thor quadcopter drones.
The barrister showed the photo of the red team taken at the Air BnB and asked if at that point there was a plan and intention to enter and to disrupt operations. Ms Kamio agreed there was. Ms Gargitter asked if they knew there would be security on site, and Ellie said they believed there weren’t many, because the company was trying to keep a low profile so the local community wouldn’t suspect what was going on. The lawyer suggested the plan to shout at them if they turned up was to intimidate them. Ellie said her mum had taught her to try and be “as big as possible”. She said these were three very big men and she didn’t think they’d be intimidated – she wanted them to leave because they were very scary. Volante seemed unpredictable and looking for a fight. They tried to persuade him to leave because he had been swinging things at them.
Ms Gargitter played the clip where Ms Kamio is with Ms Rogers and Mr Devlin and she picks up a fire extinguisher and sprayed foam at Mr Volante. Ellie said that he was still picking up items, she was scared, and the spray seemed like a good way to get him to leave.
The barrister suggested that if the guards had come in politely and asked them to leave they would have carried on committing criminal damage. Ms Kamio said that she disagreed the damage was criminal – she was destroying weapons.
Ms Gargitter moved on to ask about when the police arrived and referring to PC Adam’s BWV, that when he entered he shouted ‘Drop that now’. Ms Kamio said she probably heard it, but right then the most violent of the guards, Mr Volante, was running straight at her, so it didn’t really register. She also said she thought she was already being Tasered when he shouted “Taser, Taser”. Asked about the object she threw and whether she knew police had arrived, Ellie said it all happened very fast, she just felt people were coming to get her and this was the last thing she could smash.
Ms Gargitter asked her to clarify what she’d said to Mr Wainwright about going floppy. She said she didn’t think it was ever about people being able to go on smashing things, but rather so as to make two people carry you and it all takes longer. She added that it was drilled into people NOT to resist arrest, as it could lead to other charges. Ms Gargitter said Ms Kamio was not complying when Adams was trying to put handcuffs on her, and she replied that he was twisting her wrist and standing on her. When the lawyer suggested he’d have stopped if she offered her wrists, she said that police had beaten up lots of women at the Sarah Everard protest and it taught her not to trust them – he had after all just Tasered her. When asked why she later said “I’m complying now”, Ms Kamio answered that when she said that she meant she wasn’t smashing computers any more, not resisting arrest.
The jury were sent out briefly as another legal issue was raised, and then Ms Hammad (Ms Kamio’s defence lawyer) asked a couple of points. First, referring to Ms Gargitter’s assertion that Ms Kamio had been trying to appear intimidating, she asked Ellie how she’d felt during the interactions. She replied that she was intimidated and terrified, with three scary-looking Elbit men looking like they might hurt the activists. Mira Hammad asked if Ellie had used violence against any of the guards and she responded a firm no. Finally, she asked when Ms Kamio was asking to be cuffed in front, whether she was asking not to be cuffed or arrested at all, and Ellie replied that of course they all expected to be arrested.
Before finishing off the day’s proceedings, Ms Hammad read out the first of several good character witness statements on behalf of Ellie Kamio. These were all adduced in earlier proceedings and you can read summaries of them here.
This page has had updates as the case continues, but we are considering whether to continue catching up in light of the fact that five of the defendants dismissed their legal representatives in order to address the jury directly in their closing speeches, and we feel they expose the sham that this carefully contrived show trial has truly become. We say that in the Kafka-esque knowledge that we are not legally permitted to explain all the reasons why. There are some clues given in the closing speeches and we can publish those because they were made in open court in front of the jury by the defendants.
