[Previous coverage – Week 1 and Week 2]
WEEK 3
DAY EIGHT OF THE TRIAL – MONDAY 1st DEC
The jury had originally been called for 10.45 this morning so that the court could decide on some matters before public sittings began. In fact, it was 11.30 before they began hearing evidence again, and the prosecution were to resume the list of ‘Agreed Facts’ which they were reading out on Friday afternoon.
Ms Gargitter handed out a new document – a schedule chart – announcing she wouldn’t go through every line, but would pick out some parts of it that the prosecution wanted to highlight. She began with a summary of some of the items recovered from the scene, which included Nokia phones, lump hammers (also described as sledgehammers by the court) – one of which is physically shown to the jury. Also GoPro cameras, angle grinders, a pointed tool and crowbars, rucksacks, rope, face masks, gloves, shears, fire extinguishers, smoke bombs and smoke tubes and a black fabric whip which was also shown in court.
Next was some medical evidence about APS Kate Evans, which turned out to be somewhat less dramatic than described by the corporate and state media last week. The first report was from the hospital admission where she walked in slowly but evenly and unaided. An X-ray scan showed no obvious acute injury, but a radiologist’s report some days later reported a small fracture to the bony projection at the side of a vertebra, not requiring surgery. Ms Evans was advised to take pain medication if necessary while it healed. In ensuing physiotherapy Ms Evans complained of pain and occasional numbness and other symptoms, she was given an MRI scan a few months later which showed no bony injury or spinal compression. In the months leading up to trial the CPS ordered a report by an orthopaedic specialist who re-examined the scans and gave an opinion that Ms Evans had sustained a fracture to the side of her vertebra typical of a medium to severe blow or a motor accident or a fall, expected to heal in 3- 6 weeks, with full recovery in 3-6 months and no long-term consequences.
Next was medical evidence of security officer Nigel Shaw’s injuries. He sustained a 4cm long shallow cut which was stapled at the hospital with no infection on removal. A few other superficial lacerations were described, and a tooth cap had been knocked off. Dental records described some white fillings needing replacement or filling.
Continuing the list of agreed facts, Ms Gargitter mentioned that body-worn video footage was given to the police on a USB stick. (We’ll be coming back to this in a lot more detail later.)
There was a series of photographs taken by police after the action both inside and outside the site.
Next were the agreed facts relating to Cryptpad documents retrieved by police from computer equipment attributed to defendants, along with information about google map searches, and content of emails and browsing history and so on. This section of evidence related to the Cryptpad is quite long, and the prosecution wanted to highlight just a few sections from it. One is a substantial guide to taking action against Elbit, with advice on conducting action meetings – these include introductions, legal preparations, action plans and ‘raid proofing’. There are checklists for planning, meetings, actions, kit, post-actions etc.
Ms Gargitter picked out some phrases from a list of ten actions agreements. “We do not need to seek permission from police or other authorities for our actions”, “Our actions seek to disrupt, damage or destroy complicit companies”, and “Record all actions – if there’s no record, it didn’t happen, Elbit isn’t going to promote our actions , we are our own media”. Amongst lists of kit required, there’s a guide to converting fire extinguishers to spray paint, and there are contacts for recommended solicitors.
The Cryptpad offers advice (ironically under the circumstances) on secure communications, with suggestions to use a Protonmail email address and Signal app, but warning that no platform is totally secure.
There is advice for co-ordinators to create detailed action plans, which includes a section on ‘red lines’ – i.e. what individuals are willing to do, with low level (LL) actions possibly including spraying paint, smashing windows or locking on, and high level (HL) actions including entering a factory, higher damage and tackling security. The point is made that each participant must be comfortable with the level intended, as there may be a chance of a joint enterprise charge being brought.
There’s a guide to ‘raid-proofing’ with advice on removing things you don’t want the police to have, including sentimental items. The next section is on what to go through at a ‘safe house’ prior to action, and what to do post-action.
Moving on, the prosecution described the police interviews which took place during the week after the incident, reading any written statements out to the court.
In the presence of their solicitors, Mr. Corner and Ms Kamio chose to make no comment. The others gave written statements which were broadly similar, stating that they had had no intention of causing harm to anyone, and did not encourage others to commit violence, and were not carrying weapons nor carrying tools which were intended to be used as weapons. No-one was carrying any form of incapacitance spray. They hadn’t seen anyone use whips or fireworks directed against the police or security. Ms. Rogers said that she was scared by the security, and Mr. Devlin stated that he had been placed in a chokehold by a security officer who had also bitten his neck, and had sustained several injuries caused by a security officer.
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After a short break called by the judge, Ms Gargitter took the jury to a custody report which described Ms Rogers as having a nervous and shocked demeanour.
The jury might wonder why the trial appears to be out of sequence, as now after the conclusion of the Agreed Facts, Detective Constable Hayden Johns is brought back to the witness stand to face a few questions from the defence team. If you remember, he was the officer who last week confirmed, with occasional “That’s right” and “Yes” comments, what the prosecution outlined were the very long and detailed ‘sequence of events’.
Now Mr. Menon asked Johns to confirm a tweet posted from a Palestine Action account which broke the news of the action, that it described Filton as the “Bristol-based research, development and manufacturing hub for Israel’s biggest arm producer” and “that by dismantling machinery and weapons, they [Palestine Action] directly intervene in Elbit’s genocidal supply chain.”
With reference to the ten action agreements mentioned by Ms Gargitter (above), Mr Menon drew attention to the tenth, instructing activists “not to be dickheads”, and calling people to work together and not be racist, sexually abusive or aggressive, saying that it is not tolerated and anyone doing so would be asked to leave.
Mr Menon then asked Mr Johns to confirm some other documents in the Cryptpad, which would now be added to the jury bundle. These include “What is direct action?”, “What are barriers to taking direct action?”, along with a David Graeber quote. Also a set of principles of Palestine Action, some photos of previous actions – Menon asks Johns if he can see the Palestinian flag. There’s a map of various site across the UK, including some that have been shut down. He asks Johns to confirm there is an exposition of Palestine Action that says– “Palestine action is a direct action network with clear targets. We can win if we stay focused. Our actions expose, disrupt and destroy the companies who profit off the death and destruction of the Palestinian people and other oppressed groups across the world. Overall, we keep it simple and clear. War criminals are not welcome here and must be forced out.”
There’s a list of different types of action – covert, arrestable, low level, high level – and a quite from Edward Snowdon along with more photos from previous actions.
Ms Hamad brings Mr. Johns’ attention to two points – the sixth of the action agreements, which states “Elbit Systems and Associated Companies are our targets, the only way this will stop is when we shut Elbit down, we can win if we stay focused”, and the next agreement which is named “Need to know”, and tells activists that in all actions if they need to know something they will know it, if not, they will not, to ensure actions and activists are not compromised.
Before the next witness takes the stand, the prosecution hand out yet more new evidence to the court. This time it’s a new map of the Elbit site showing where CCTV cameras are situated. As well as the ones seen before, SIX new ones have been added in hand-writing.
This presages the arrival of a ‘CCTV recovery officer’ who works for the police National Digital Exploitation Service – PC Sarah Grant takes the witness stand.
Ms Heer asks her to confirm that she was asked by Detective Sergeant Crawley to attend the Filton site on the 8th August because of issues with the video evidence provided by Elbit Security to PC Tanner two days earlier. She had been instructed to collect evidence from ALL cameras from during the incident and the preceding four days.
PC Grant met Elbit’s security manager that morning (whom the court refers to as Witness A) and she describes him as “quite high up” in the company. He took her to the control room which she describes as having lots of screens showing the feed from a total of 53 cameras. It uses a ‘Pelco’ system, with a mixture of static, motion-sensing and pan/zoom/tilt (PZT) operated cameras. She checked the system time – which she found to be around 25 minutes slow, and noted that the earliest footage was from 1st January that year (8 months old).
At this point the judge called a break for lunch.
After lunch PC Grant described how she was confused because she hadn’t known exactly what the incident was about, but she watched the simultaneous feed from the 53 cameras – she thought “two to three times” – before deciding which ones showed ‘relevant’ footage. She filled in a retrieval form for just twelve feeds.
At this point it became clear that the Pelco system had limited capacity and if they were to try and download all footage for the period of four days and the action, it would likely take 24 days to do so. She spoke to the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the investigation, and mindful of defendants held in custody, they decided to try and get footage from 18 cameras and of just the action period of 3 – 4.30 a.m.
But then Ms Grant realised it would still take a few days, and so decided to just download her original choice of 12, because the others didn’t appear to show any relevant action.
While that footage downloaded, she also went to other nearby premises and obtained footage from cameras on other companies’ buildings.
Once downloaded, PC Grant checked some of the files and found discontinuous footage and what she described as odd time lags – some could be explained by periods of no motion on motion-sensor footage, but others were “not normal”. She sought advice from a colleague, Mr. Uddin, who thought it might be to do with frame rate settings – some were 4fps, some 1fps, and one camera took a frame image every 17 seconds.
Ms Grant said she raised the issue with ‘Witness A’, telling him the system was not fit for purpose and advised him to set everything to 25fps going forward.
Ms Heer asked the officer why footage from Cams 22 and 23 (mentioned as of interest earlier in the trial) were not downloaded. She said she imagined it was because- The defence barrister interrupted due to that choice of phrase, and Ms Heer asked instead whether there was any sensible explanation for the missing footage, and Grant said it was because no action had been seen on those cameras due to the frame rate.
Ending her ‘evidence-in-chief’ Grant spoke about how helpful the security team had generally been in giving access to the footage and helping her download it. She also described Elbit’s Pelco system as one of the most difficult systems she had ever encountered.
It was still mid-afternoon, so next up would usually be cross-examination by the defence team, but after sending the jury out for a further extended break, on their return he told them the court had some other issues to deal with for the rest of the day, and that there was also a possibility they would not be needed for much more than the morning tomorrow.
DAY NINE – TUESDAY 2nd DEC
After another delay for some legal issues to be discussed, the jury saw Detective Sergeant Sarah Grant return to the witness box to face cross-examination from the defence.
Mr. Menon began, on behalf of the first defendant Charlotte Head. He asked the officer to look at a statement by PC Alice Tanner in which she confirmed being given two USB memory sticks by Elbit security staff in the afternoon following the action. One had BWV footage, but the other also had CCTV footage. DS Grant’s involvement began the next day when she was sent to retrieve CCTV footage because the files on the stick were not playable.
Mr. Menon handed the witness her contemporaneous notes from 7th August – something called a ‘trawl sheet’ – that suggested she’d retrieved 12 cameras’ footage (cameras 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 giving external views, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 26 from inside, and 52 outside again.) There was a note that a camera was only playing one frame every 17 seconds, but Ms Grant couldn’t confirm which camera it referred to, telling the court it had been a frenzied situation.
On her form she had also referenced a map of camera positions. She told the court she’d been emailed that later by Elbit security staff, but told it contained other sensitive information and it shouldn’t be shared outside the investigation.
Mr. Menon took Ms Grant through her activities the day she was at Elbit. She confirmed that she’d looked through all the footage of the incident on a set of screens in the control room – there were many screens, each with nine camera views, and that there were a total of 53 cameras. Mr. Menon suggested no-one could effectively view 53 screens at once and identify relevant footage. Ms Grant said they already had nine cameras they knew were relevant so she was looking at the others and jotting down if any showed movements. These nine, she said, were identified to her by Elbit staff, and included six external cameras, and just 18, 19 and 20 from inside.
Ms Grant said she added cameras 21 and 26 from inside and 52 outside. She claimed these were the ones she spotted action on, but Mr Menon expressed some confusion as to how she could view so many feeds at once. She said the room had a “wall of screens” but that she couldn’t recall how many.
The barrister said he’d been given a new plan very recently by police showing 12 cameras INSIDE the building (18-29), although as late as the start of the trial the defence were disclosed a plan showing only five cameras – the ones Grant had recovered. Once the defence team was aware of more cameras, they’d started asking questions, and Ms Grant made a new statement late on Sunday evening, at the end of the first week of trial.
Two cameras that hadn’t appeared in the original plan (C22 and C23) appeared to cover the alcove and surrounding area in Zone 9 (where there had been contested interactions between defendants and security guards mentioned earlier in the trial).
Menon asked what C22 was recording, and Grant said she thought it was the alcove (as there were no blank screens), but she didn’t know what its frame rate was. Menon asked if her answer would be the same for the other new cameras, which she confirmed. She was asked about the list, in her handwritten notes, of 18 cameras – she couldn’t explain why the only inside camera mentioned was C22, and said she thought it was the list of requested cameras (slimmed down from all 53) but couldn’t remember exactly. The word ‘warehouse’ appears next to C22, but she couldn’t remember why, saying she thought it related to where the prison van was.
After leaving Elbit, she discovered even her new copy was jumpy and so a technical engineer, Mr. Uddin, was sent to Filton two days later – he took screenshots of the views from each camera which are shown to the court.
Ms Heer tells Mr Menon there has been a mistake and cameras 22 and 23 have been numbered the wrong way round. He shows PC Grant the view into the alcove and asks her to confirm she saw no movement at all, which she claims must have been due to the frame rate. Menon asked her to confirm that Elbit had SOLE CONTROL of the footage and the system for two days – she agreed, but said the recordings on the system would have been the same and there was no evidence they had edited anything. She confirmed that she had not asked Elbit about the footage from cameras 22-25 until “much later” and that they were “quite shocked when I pointed it out”.
The name of her contact at Elbit Systems has been withheld from the defence barristers and he is known as Witness A. Grant was asked about her contact with him and referred her to email correspondence between them. On 11th Aug she’d sent an email headed ‘CCTV update Saturday’ stating that the police hadn’t checked the frame rate of all the cameras, just dipping in to get an interview, but she was concerned that “ There’s a huge opportunity for the defence counsel to use the gaps and jumps to their advantage”.
Menon asked why on earth the police were chatting with Israel’s largest arms manufacturer about what the defence counsel might do. She replied it was just her experience there was potential for that and that the system was so bad she was concerned about possible future incidents.
One of the other defence barristers picked up the baton, asking about the supposed independence of the police, and about the integrity of independent investigation and storage of exhibits. They referred to a police search of a safe at Filton carried out on 22nd November just before the trial, which found a number of USB sticks in Metropolitan Police evidence bags. Ms Grant said she was not aware of that. But one of the bags had written on it “provided to Elbit Systems by PC Grant.” The officer said the only stuff they’d given back was the material offloaded to create space. She said she couldn’t recall the labelling of the bag, that it wasn’t normal practice and couldn’t understand it at all.
The barrister tries to clear up some further confusion in Ms Grant’s notes, spotting that the list of “18” cameras actually contains 19, which matches a still from security guard Mr. Luke’s BWV camera showing 19 screens in the control room. Could those be the ones listed, she asks PC Grant. “Not without knowing the camera numbers” was the reply. Asked whether it was possible she hadn’t seen the footage from the alcove camera at all, she said that despite no contemporaneous note, she was sure she’d watched all the cameras.
The barrister noted that the cameras claimed to show no movement were all covering the left side of the warehouse. Ms Grant replied that’s just the way they were. Asked about the nature of the company – military tech and surveillance equipment – she said although she hadn’t known what it was at the time, she would have been surprised the system appeared to be set up so badly.
In her evidence Ms Grant had mentioned the police had had no access to the overall system password. She said this was because no-one knew who had it – she said it wasn’t followed up because it wasn’t relevant to the investigation and they had all they needed. The police also made no attempt to discover who had set the various frame rates, especially the slow 17-second one.
The court had seen footage from C20 that showed continuous movement from in and around the alcove, so even with a 17-second frame rate, Ms Grant was asked why there was no footage retrieved from C22/23 and was it possible she hadn’t been shown it by Elbit. She repeated that she had retrieved ALL relevant footage that showed movement.
Mr. Uddin returned on 9th August tasked to retrieve further footage from cameras numbered 4, 52, 53, 15 and 16 – relating to the hole in the fence. A photo he took in the server room shows nine camera screens – one is numbered 28, and another 29 – the new camera plan suggests they viewed the loading bay (where the van and red team had entered), but there’s no footage from them. Again Ms Grant repeated that she had seen everything.
Mr Wainwright asked PC Grant whether she’d been made aware that the security guard Mr. Volante had run into the factory towards one of the defendants with a whip in his hand, and there was another incident in which a security guard used a sledgehammer. He asked her whether she’d searched for footage of that. She said she’d been told about it when she was there, but didn’t look for it specifically as she had downloaded everything that happened in that hour and a half between 3 and 4.30am. She couldn’t remember seeing a security guard with a whip.
Mr. Wainwright showed an image of the view from C24, asking if she’d looked at that footage and whether she’d seen Volante running with a whip in his hand and screaming. Ms Grant said that if the camera had been operating properly regarding the frame rate, she’d have seen it, but had made no notes of frame rates etc. Asked about C28, and the security guard running into the alcove, she was asked whether she’d seen that or made any notes on it. She said she couldn’t remember. Effectively it wasn’t her job, and she handed all the footage over to her Sergeant, Ken Crawley. Now, more than a year later she’d been asked to make a new statement because of questions asked about camera 23.
Ms Heer asked a few questions to clarify the officer’s role and experience, and asked whether the missing password had affected her ability to collect relevant footage – she said it simply stopped them from fixing Elbit’s system and setting all cams to 25 fps for the future, and that no more inquiries had been made into it.
After a short break, Detective Constable George Reid went in the witness stand. His role was as an evidence ‘viewing manager’, one of two, who manage a team filling in viewing logs as they look through all the video footage. He explained he would categorise and store evidence in relation to the ‘aims of the investigation’, and then the officer in the case (OIC) would assess what should be prepared by the Forensic Visual and Audio Unit (FAVU) – professionals employed to edit, clip, blur and add graphics etc as instructed. In this case, he took instruction and someone called Sarah Bentley did the editing.
Defence barrister Mr. Wainwright asked about the BWV footage – Reid said it was DC Johnson who was dealing with that, and that he’d only been sent to Elbit to seize some footage, not to view it. He was shown a clip of Mr. Volante with a whip in his hand and he said he hadn’t seen it before, but that probably the other viewing manager DC Hammersley had. Asked why that footage had been edited out of the trial compilation he said he didn’t know, and asked when he became aware there were other cameras numbered 22 and 23, he said it was just the other day – when it came up in court – because his colleagues were talking about it in the office.
The final witness was called – DC Matthew Hammersley – working for Counter Terrorism Police South East. He described himself as the second viewing manager alongside Reid. He confirmed they might not look at all the footage, but would have logs prepared by a viewing team which they’d review and send to the FAVU clipping team. He said he’d collected the CCTV footage from the FAVU team in around March this year and was tasked with compiling a film for the court mainly covering the actions of the Palestine Action red team inside the warehouse, along with a graphics of the area and indicating different persons of interest. All this was at the request of a senior officer, Mr. Tucker. A brief was given to Sarah Bentley at FAVU along with BWVs from police and security and CCTV. At first the idea was to produce a film showing each defendant’s movements, but on reviewing the result, as there was a lot of repetition, it was decided to combine them into one.
Defence barrister Mr. Morris asked when Hammersley first became involved – it was at the end of August after the incident, and DC Reid had viewed the footage before that. He said that he hadn’t watched the actual unedited BWV footage probably until around this summer, when asked to prepare the compilation.
Mr. Morris noted that Hammersley had made several statements over the past year, but only the latest, served during this trial, mentioned that he was a ‘viewing manager’. He said that he hadn’t thought it relevant. Mr. Morris then showed the unedited clip of Mr. Volante running in with the whip in his hand and asked Hammersley why he hadn’t put this in the compilation. The response was that the technician Sarah Bentley had a degree of autonomy in what went in. Asked whether the edit was deliberate Mr. Hammersley said no.
The judge sent the jury to lunch early, to discuss some more legal matters.
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After lunch, the prosecution handed the jury a few new pages for their bundles. These included copies of the handwritten notes referred to in Ms Grant’s testimony, along with Mr. Uddin’s photographs of screens. Then there were more witness statements to be read out.
The first was made by PC Alice Tanner on 6th August 2024 in which she says she collected a USB stick from Elbit and uploaded its contents to ‘Evidence Works’ (the police system). Then she makes a second more detailed statement dated 18th November this year (after being contacted by DC Hammersley at the start of the trial). She said that on her first visit to Elbit, security were having difficulty downloading footage, and so she returned a few hours later and was handed some USB sticks at the gate to the site, the contents of which she uploaded as mentioned before. Then she makes yet another statement two days later, saying there were two USBs, which were uploaded – one with BWV and the other with CCTV – but that the CCTV videos were jumpy and discontinuous.
A final witness statement came from an Elbit security guard Christian Mosely, dated 22nd November (during the trial) describing a visit that day from Detective Constable Marsh. They looked at the position and lines of sight of cameras in the warehouse, and searched the system for any footage from 6th August the previous year. None existed. Marsh said he was interested in cameras 22 and 23, and Mosely drew attention to the fact that they both clearly showed the area in and around the alcove. He got a colleague to walk around the area and played it back – it was continuous and smooth playback with the correct timestamp. He says he doesn’t know why the police weren’t given footage from those cameras at the time of the incident but he wasn’t working then.
Mosely then opens a safe – inside it there are two sealed envelopes with what feel like credit cards in them, the Metropolitan Police bag from Ms Grant that she couldn’t account for, an envelope with a USB stick marked ‘Incident 13th January’. Then there was a plastic bag with another USB stick marked ‘Angelo Volante’s body worn footage’ – this bag also has some writing which says it was opened for police officer DC Richard Ayers on the 17th November (the start of the trial), so they didn’t look at that. There was one more Met Police bag containing a USB. The bag said it was ‘Data from the D-Drive’, which they reviewed. It contained 66 files – most pre-dated the incident. The others were either given to police at the time of the incident, or just after. Finally there was a plastic envelope marked CCTV Archive of August incident, which was a copy of the USB stick given to Elbit by PC Grant on the 8th August.
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The judge told the jury that this was the end of the prosecution’s case.
Because of more legal matters to deal with, and a prior commitment of one of the jurors, they will not sit again until Thursday morning, when the defence case will begin.
DAY TEN – THURSDAY 4th DECEMBER
After a day without proceedings due to a juror’s prior commitment, today was the first time we would hear from a defendant. Before Charlotte Head was sworn in, Judge Johnson told the jury that it was agreed that all the defendants had no previous convictions or cautions, and although he would further instruct the jury on this point later on in the trial, they may wish to take this into account when hearing the evidence, as to whether they accept what they’re being told.
Defence barrister Rajiv Menon took the first defendant through her evidence beginning by asking Ms Head if she had participated in the action and driven the van. Without hesitation she said she had, and that the intention was to cause as much damage inside the factory as possible, because of the genocide that was taking place in Gaza, and knowing that Elbit produce about 85% of the Israeli weapons including drones, munitions, battle simulators, etc. She said that all else had failed and no-one was listening.
Ms Head said she had taken and used a sledgehammer, crowbar, and a fire extinguisher with red paint but had no intention on entering the site to cause any injury, explaining that she worked for a domestic violence charity and believes in peace. She said she could barely raise the sledgehammer, and doesn’t believe in violence, because it’s not the solution.
Asked if she damaged any property, she said she’d destroyed 5-10 drones, some flight simulators, computer equipment and other obviously military equipment. Asked if she had used violence, she said absolutely not against either security nor against police.
Mr Menon said he would ask her about her background and how she became involved, but first asked if she was in custody. Ms Head said she’d been on remand for around 16 months. Each court hearing day begins with being woken at 5am, then there is a 2 or 3 hour journey to the court from Bronzefield prison. Some days she ends up being in the van for more time than in the court, often not getting back to the prison until 8.30, and back to her cell by 10, eating what she can and then very tired, sleeping until the 5am wake up. She said she was currently very tired and anxious. Mr. Menon said she should let the judge know if she was struggling, and maybe there could be a break.
Over the next hour or so, we heard about Ms Head’s background. She is now 29 years old and was brought up in the Midlands. After achieving good grades at A level, she worked for a while as a personal trainer, and then moved to France to learn the language, ending up nannying in Paris for a while.
She hadn’t had any interest in politics at that age, but that changed when hearing about the refugee camps in Calais, and she decided to volunteer in a holiday (for a week) – and then much more regularly for the next three years. As a result, she began to study NGO management at university, but the course turned out to be less useful than she had hoped, and she went back to Calais to carry on with field work, feeling it would be more useful.
For the first year she was helping with clothes distribution, then on to the hospital run – the main camp (aka ‘The Jungle’) was destroyed in 2016 so refugees had no access to healthcare and she ferried people to health centres and helped to translate and so on. The scale of the problem was enormous – at its peak the Jungle had around 10,000 people from the Global South there, but now there were lots of smaller disparate areas.
It was all volunteer work, except in the last year when she was getting a small monthly stipendiary. Her mother helped with some money, but she had basic accommodation at the warehouse – and ate the same food as the refugees did.
One of the groups there were the Human Rights Observers Project and she joined them after witnessing and hearing about much police violence. She started documenting human rights abuses, to make sure it didn’t just pass under the radar. This included police stealing medicine, beating people, using tear gas. She was aware UK taxes were being spent on these French border guards and she wanted to get info out on what it was being used for. With her friend Diego, she published a report alongside Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.
In 2018, the Guardian newspaper reported some of the abuses, the camp clearances and the unprecedented hardship, which actually caused increased attempts to cross Channel in boats. It was the first time such abuses had been documented over a sustained period. There was a long quote in the article from Ms Head, who was described as the Head from the Human Rights Observers Project in which she mentioned some of the things she’d seen – a child blinded, police firing chemical sprays in the mouth of another, and many other abuses.
Ms Head said she remembered doing the interview with the Guardian and it was a traumatic time – she’d seen a child lose his eye, and had to give first aid to someone who had been stabbed. She started questioning why all these people were coming here, and the more she learned she saw the British and American involvement, and the links between displacement and the massive profits from weapons and war.
She was really broken after three years of this experience – she recalled a 15 year-old telling her he wished he’d stayed in Afghanistan because at least he’d have died quickly.
She went to help a small grassroots ‘Citizens’ Accommodation’ project (hosting refugees) in Brussels.
When she returned to UK, she ended up in London in a shared house with friends from Calais, and worked as a bike messenger – despite her experience she couldn’t get charity work without a degree. Then there was lockdown. She had to find some work and so she trained as a bike mechanic.
As lockdown lifted in 2023, she went with a partner and a dog to South Wales to be in nature for a while, where she could carry on with work, writing for a cycling magazine remotely.
The following year she moved back to London – this was just after October 7th and the start of the Israeli war on Gaza. She said these events awoke something political in her – the pictures were so similar to what she’d experienced in Calais – people in tents trying to stay alive. She felt she had to do something.
For work, she applied for jobs in the charity sector and became a Housing Officer at Advance (a domestic violence charity) where she worked full time until the Filton action.
Mr. Menon asked her to take a look at some notebooks seized by police from her home. The prosecution barrister Ms Heer called for a short break, saying she hadn’t seen them. This was granted by Judge Johnson.
On return, the first notebook was mainly about Ms Head’s domestic violence work, with her notes on risk assessments, safety planning etc. to help people experiencing domestic abuse. There were her notes on advising how to prepare an escape, a warning to avoid kitchens (where most homicides happen), prepare an escape bag etc.
She told the court she had regular meetings with MARAC – a multi-agency organisation including NHS, child protection, police, social workers etc. The notes outlined categories of abuse, safeguarding, confidentiality, protection of children. Charlotte spoke about having to take into account how children are affected by seeing violence.
She said local authorities would try and save money so she had to know the law to quote, to ensure people at risk would receive accommodation.
Mr. Menon asked her how much she knew about the issue of Palestine. She said when she returned to London in Feb 2024, she knew there’d been conflict and that Israel was a sort of settler colonial occupation. After October 2023, she’d obviously heard a lot more, and started to research, saying she’d done the same over Syria when that had happened.
She said she was getting information from Channel 4, the Guardian, Independent, Al Jazeera, NYT, and on social media from groups like the UN, Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.
The images she saw almost daily triggered PTSD from her time in Calais, and she’d find herself in floods of tears. She remembered a huge fire in Dunkirk at a Kurdish camp and how she had been searching for these two sweet girls probably aged around 11 – running around trying to find these kids. The reports from Gaza were so similar – it got to the point she took an overdose. The A&E doctor asked why she’d done it, and she said ‘Gaza’.
Asked whether she’d attended the big national marches for Palestine, she said she went to her first one in Cardiff, and then attended the London ones from November onwards.
She was living in Hackney in May 2024 and came across the peace camp outside the Town Hall. Discovering that they were calling for the Council to divest from companies involved in the arms trade to Israel, she signed up to shifts helping them. The camp was legal, and she often stayed there overnight with a protection crew.
Mr Menon asked the jury to look at another of the seized notebooks. Various people had written in it, with references to a protest at Hackney Council in July demanding they stop investment in Israel’s war crimes. He asked Charlotte about her involvement and she said they’d tried a lot to get council to talk with them and eventually were granted a deputation with the Pensions Committee. She was in the gallery, engaging in democratic process. The camp existed effectively to reach that goal. Some councillors were very sympathetic and suggested to the committee ways they could move the funds. But at the end of the evening, the weeks and weeks of this work was met by the Pensions Head simply reading out a prepared rejection statement, leaving her feeling sheer frustration.
She wondered what to do next. All the marches, sleeping at a camp, dealing with difficult issues at work, formally applying to the council by their rules, and it just felt like they didn’t care and didn’t even have to listen to people.
Mr. Menon asked when she’d heard about Palestine Action. She said she’d probably heard about them for quite a while – she thought they were founded in 2022 – and thinks she followed them on Instagram. (in fact they were founded in August 2020). Thinking that the council deputation might well be ignored, people at the camp had been talking about escalation tactics and someone had mentioned a Palestine Action training day.
In the ‘Agreed Facts’ bundle there was mention of a London training event on 30th June, and Ms Head was asked if she attended it. She couldn’t be sure of the exact date, but thought it likely. She described there being 30-40 people there, with half a dozen trainers, and it was a long day.
There was a talk about the history of Zionism and intertwined with Britain’s involvement from 1917 onwards. In a Powerpoint presentation, there was an intro to the background of Palestine Action, and who they targeted and why, along with the sorts of actions they did.
They split into groups during the afternoon depending on the level of commitment that people might take.
Ms Head recalled that Non Violent Direct Action (NVDA) was at the core of the movement, targeting Elbit because it was Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer making 85% of their weapons – weapons in the UK being sent to an illegal war. The group had carried out around 400 actions by that time, and the attendees were shown images of many of these – there was quite a lot of property damage, but no mention of anyone ever being hurt.
Mr. Menon asked hypothetically if Ms Head had been told they were violent towards people, would she have got involved? She replied that she’d met groups before who were perhaps comfortable with the use of force, but she felt it was morally not right, and as a strategy it simply doesn’t work either.
Mr. Menon then asked what she had been told about the Elbit Systems company.
The judge interrupted, saying that ‘we may need a discussion if you’re moving into this territory, talking about the history of the Middle East or the role of Elbit.’
Mr. Menon replied that he was just asking about the company that she had targeted and that this would be directly relevant to her state of mind and intent.
Judge Johnson insisted that if the barrister wished to discuss this now, he’d have to ask the jury to leave.
Mr. Menon agreed, and there was a discussion about legal issues for around 15 minutes before they were allowed to return, the judge announcing to them that the defence was going to move on to a different topic.
Mr. Menon asked Ms Head what she was told about possible future actions. She explained there were categories of overt (arrestable) actionists, or coverts (hoping to get away with an action), and types of action classed as low level (such as ‘locking on’, blocking an entrance with a vehicle, or spraying paint) or high level (maybe occupying a site and damaging equipment). She said she was prepared to be arrested and felt she needed to do something meaningful and stand up to try and stop the genocide, so she agreed to join a high level overt group.
Mr. Menon said that must have been a huge decision given she’d never been arrested before. She remembered that at the training, people were asked why they’d come – normal people, fed up and hurting, were there. Waking up every day – the first time a genocide was being livestreamed – bits of bodies. She’d seen a video after a bombing of a father holding a decapitated small child, and thought “children can’t be terrorists”. To claim you’re precision-targeting but then kill 10,000 children was not something she could stand by and watch.
She was asked whether she’d been told what might happen on arrest. Perhaps naively, she believed when told that it wouldn’t affect her DBS (police check on staff working with vulnerable people) and that employers would understand when she explained what the conviction was for. She was told that, very often, Elbit had dropped charges, and that it was likely she’d be released on bail.
After agreeing to take part, she was added to a Signal group for High Level arrestable people and then a couple of weeks later she found herself added to another group, probably around the middle of July. Everything was on a need to know basis – she remembered the plan was to target a factory – only high-level arrestable people were in that group – there were a couple of changes as people dropped out, but she wasn’t aware of any of the covert team being in the group. She’d been told she’d need some time off work, for planning, action and custody.
Asked a bit more about what she knew of bail, she said the organisers had mentioned that almost everyone gets bail. Only one person up to that point had been remanded, and they were released after 3 months.
She didn’t meet her team personally until at the BnB on 4th August, but there were some voice and video calls – possibly as many as ten – with bits of information being added each time. These were mostly voice calls nearer the action. It seemed there were organisers (people involved a lot longer) telling them stuff. They were finally told the target was a new Elbit factory specifically doing research and development, and she thought it had not been targeted before.
The plan was discussed in part – at first it seemed it was going to be on foot – then later there might be a van, so Charlotte said she’d driven a van a lot in Calais, and even lived in one. She thought it was just to transport, but then the idea of crashing into a building was raised. She was obviously reticent, but was told the security on the new building was strong and this would be a way in.
Charlotte was still mostly staying at the Hackney camp, and still working full-time on the domestic violence team.
Mr. Menon began to take Ms Head through the ‘sequence of events’ highlighting each mention of her.
There was no dispute about Charlotte’s phone number – she said she had it from around age 13. She agreed she’d bought a train ticket to Manchester and on the 20th July paid a deposit for purchase of a prison van as instructed. Someone who she didn’t know met her with the cash. Because there was no MOT, she had to arrange to return another day.
—- LUNCH BREAK —-
Continuing with the event sequence, Ms Head confirmed she paid for the BnB after someone had transferred money to her, and that she had communicated with the owner. She caught a train to Manchester on the 3rd to go and get the van, and drove down to Bristol the following day.
Mr. Menon asked her whether she’d seen lists seized as evidence from another activists’ computer. She said she’d only been shown it in evidence and was pretty shocked.
She knew there were hammers for damage, and smoke flares for distraction, but this list also included axes, which she said had never been discussed before. The list also mentioned paintball guns, and she remembered in a meeting a couple of weeks before the action they’d discussed red lines and someone had mentioned these – she said the red team had vetoed their use and that she’d said she wanted to keep her job and they might be considered as violent, so definitely a red line. She said she didn’t know where the list had come from and she was not impressed. Asked about whips, she said these had never been discussed at all. She admitted to carrying and lighting a smoke flare, describing it as a direction. Also on the list were small hammers, bolt cutters, and angle grinders. Ms Head said these were needed by the black team as part of their escape and also to weaken the shutter before the van drove at it.
Returning to the topic of the collection of the prison van, Ms Head said she’d been told to pick up some kit from an address in Manchester – the first time she met the person at that address. Several attempts at getting insurance organised were denied – it took all afternoon. She stayed at that address and then drove down with someone who she’d also met for the first time. Another person rode in the back of the van preparing the kit to be used by the red team – sledgehammers, fire extinguishers, backpacks etc.
Jumping in the sequence of events to the morning before the action, Ms Head agreed that she and Ms Kamio went to check out how wide the fence panels were and whether the van (which was bigger than she’d imagined) would get through – she was nervous about driving into something for the first time. They tried to measure the width with jump leads (it’s all they had). She said she wasn’t involved in cutting the ‘escape hole’, which was in a different section of fencing entirely.
The comms about the Ring cameras with the AirBnB owner were shown to Ms Head – she said someone must have taken them down so as not to be seen on camera. She was actually asleep until he phoned, and she agreed to put them back up.
Turning away from the sequence of events, Menon returned to the chronology chart and asked why they’d driven to Leamington Spa – Ms Head said it was to go and pick up some red boiler suits and camping kit. From there, they had continued to Bristol where she was messaged an address for the campsite, mainly to park the rather obvious large van off road. Someone drove her from there to the AirBnB, quite late on, where several people had already arrived, maybe up to ten others, with some of the red team getting there in the morning. This was actually the first time she met her red team mates. All six had a proper meeting just a few hours before the action, but had gone over the planning documents several times before that.
Someone had a projector and laptop set up, going through more planning material. She remembers they watched a YouTube video of someone filming at the Filton site and talking to security.
Menon asked her about the ‘equipment needs’ list, and she replied they already had what they needed, so she was concentrating on all the new things they needed to plan. On that list was a mention of six BB guns and Mr. Menon asked her about them. She said she hadn’t seen that at all. Mr. Menon reminded the jury that there was no suggestion from the prosecution that any BB guns were used or found on the action.
He asked Charlotte about the balaclavas listed, and she said none of the red team were wearing them.
Referring to the plan for driving into the shutter, Ms Head said she didn’t know the shutter was a loading bay – it was simply the closest entrance to the fence.
She agreed that she’d seen the information about contingency plans, and Mr. Menon asked her what she thought “Enter with vengeance” meant. She said not to dilly dally and to get as far as they could. Menon asked her about the phrase “Louder, angrier and more determined”. She said if the security got involved that the black team should engage to try and make sure they didn’t interfere.
She said that all the training had suggested that actually security wouldn’t get involved – it hadn’t happened in other actions. The team literally took sandwiches with them because they thought (like at previous occupations) they’d be there for hours before a specialist protest police team might arrive. It was a general theme amongst organisers she said – even at the meeting at the AirBnB of the six of them, someone more experienced came into the room and again told them it was extremely unlikely security would intervene.
With reference again to the planning documents, Mr. Menon read out a description of the site ‘Elbit’s newest site is worth over 25 million pounds, previously untargeted, Elbit’s highest secured site, key R&D, in other words, research and development, needing overwhelming numbers to overwhelm security.’ The entry plan suggested that if the van could get through the internal shutter it could bulldoze equipment to ‘avenge and prevent more bulldozing of Palestinian lives.’
Menon took Ms Head to the section on legal briefing and asked if she’d remembered going through the possible legal charges in detail. She said they’d had an ‘arrest workshop’ beforehand and knew they’d be likely charged with burglary and criminal damage, with a high likelihood of bail, but they didn’t go through that list at the AirBnB.
After a final meeting with everyone, the red team had their own meeting, during which a more experienced person came in for a while. This was their opportunity to discuss what they’d do inside. They had a vague idea from some Elbit press what the inside might look like, but very little info, so they decided to try and stick together for safety, check from room to room and also try to flood the bathroom to damage stock.
She was asked about discussion of contingencies and red lines. She said they had already agreed there would be no violence – no physical harm to a person. “Although we’d been told security wouldn’t come in, we thought there was a chance they’d look in, and I guess we hoped they’d think ‘this is more than my pay grade’ and they’d just phone the police.”
Menon asked if Ms Head had had anything to do with packing the van, and was asked if she knew what was in the backpack she picked up. She said it had already been agreed what they’d take, so she assumed that was what was in them. She remembered using a flare, and there was a sledgehammer.
The judge called a short mid-afternoon break at this point.
—
After the break, Mr. Menon asked who was in the van as they drove in. Ms Head said six of the red team were there and 10-15 of the coverts in the back. She stopped the van after driving through the first fence, for the black team to get out, then drove through the second fence. Sam Corner was sitting in the front with her and the other four were in the back. She stopped to let someone from the coverts weaken the shutter with an angle grinder – they were supposed to run back and knock on the window, which they did. She then drove at the shutter (probably after about a minute she thought – it was much quicker than she’d imagined it would be, and she’d taken her seat belt off). She could see a lot of smoke and fireworks, and hear lots of shouting, but couldn’t see what was going on – she assumed it was a distraction, a smoke screen, and it was working because she couldn’t see any security through it. She was watching the person at the shutter and making sure it was clear in front of her.
When she started to move she honked the horn a couple of times and thinks she hit the shutter at maybe 10-15 mph, but it felt very fast. Because the shutter fell onto the van, she reversed and drove into it again. Her knee smashed the key on the ignition. She could smell gas, so she wanted to reverse, but couldn’t because of the broken key, so she shouted to everyone to get out. She also realised she was in a loading bay, so was worried they may not have full access to building. She went to the back of the van and shouted for help. One of the black team came, but by then she realised the internal shutter was easy to open, so they weren’t needed.
Referring to the hand-written plan of the warehouse, near camera C24 there was no locked door – it was simple – not at all the expected level of security. From then on she didn’t see any of the black team.
With reference to the footage of security BWV she said she hadn’t seen any confrontation with the black team herself. She responded that she at some point saw Mr. Shaw inside the factory, but hadn’t seen any injury or blood – he was probably 5-10 metres away. Mr. Menon asked whether she knew any security guard was injured – Ms Head said she only thought two of the red team were injured. She emphasised that any injury to security was never part of a plan. Asked about the rucksack, she said it was in the front of the van, but she hadn’t packed it. It was quite heavy.
Asked about the GoPro cameras, she said she thought Mr Corner had one on his chest, and Ms Rajwani had one strapped on her helmet. They had the cameras to gather evidence of labelling, to identify complicit companies, and to record and publicise what weapons were being destroyed. She thinks the cameras were both recording and were streaming to organisers.
After entering around C24 they went left and pulled down some shelving. Almost immediately, security came in from the other side along a corridor – Ms Head said she was panicking as it was unexpected they were there. She thinks she left the rucksack somewhere because of its weight, but thinks she took out a sledgehammer and perhaps later a crowbar and a flare. She started damaging property in the warehouse, first with the hammer, then the crowbar.
Shown some images from the evidence bundle, Ms Head agreed she used a fire extinguisher with red paint. She tried to damage what looked like battle simulators (according to nearby banners). Mr. Menon showed her various photos of equipment, among them what looked like a quadcopter drone. She said she knew Elbit were proud of having produced 85% of IDF combat drones. There were a lot more in boxes, and so she started smashing the boxes rather than trying to take them out. Photos showed a lot of these boxes, also in another area – some of the photos show damage to these, and Ms Head says she thinks she did this with the sledgehammers. There were also what she thought were controller screens for the drones, which she also damaged.
Mr. Menon spoke about Mr. Volante entering the factory with a whip he’d picked up from outside, and that the court had been shown the unclipped video where was seen running down the corridor with it. He dropped the whip and took a sledgehammer off them. Ms Head said that she’d picked up the whip. She’d seen a security guard trying to grab a sledgehammer from Ms Kamio, and she was worried he’d try and use it against her. “He was a big and angry guy”.
Mr. Menon says that that guard would have been Mr. Luke, but at the same time the other security guard was in the alcove area. Ms Head said she’d been standing there with Mr. Devlin telling him to leave. She said he may have had a sledgehammer. She heard Ms Kamio screaming for help – obviously it was chaotic so couldn’t be sure of the order.
Mr. Menon pointed out that if the apparently missing footage from cameras 22 and 23 were available, they might show what the security guards allege – that Charlotte assaulted them. But in the absence of any such footage, the jury and Ms Head are shown Mr Luke’s BWV again. It shows him opening the door, and Ms Head is outside that alcove areas. It shows Ms Kamio’s sledgehammer being grabbed by him. The footage is played again and Mr Menon asks if Ms Head agrees she was holding the whip. She says she was waving it in front as a rather pathetic deterrent and Luke grabs it. She confirms that she never hit him, but she agrees it’s possible she cracked it on the ground. Soon after that, the shot is of the whip on the floor. She is then seen with a sledgehammer. She says she didn’t think it was her original one, but picked it up in that area. She is heard saying something like: “Have this, I’m going to look for stuff in the warehouse”, and she ran off, because it was clear the police were coming and she wanted to look for stuff to damage – the drones.
Unredacted footage from Mr. Luke’s BWV is shown next. Alarms are going off, and Mr. Volante is shown screaming at Ms Head and Ms Rajwani. Ms Head has her hands up, and she promptly gets down on the ground. Ms Head says she remembered thinking this was someone that wouldn’t hesitate to break her arm.
Neither Head nor Rajwani got up again before being arrested and removed by police. Mr. Menon asked if she knew what was happening to the other four. She said not, but that she’d heard screaming very nearby – she thought it was Ms Kamio. She also had got some pepper spray on her face, and so was holding her face on the cool floor.
Mr. Menon is reminded by this comment that she could be seen earlier near Mr. Devlin and Mr. Volante. She said that she didn’t know who had sprayed her, but wanted to get away from it immediately as she had experienced the pain of a spray once before.
Returning a final time to the sequence of events, Mr Menon reminds the court of two short video clips. The second shows her and Ms Rajwani – the clip is from Rajwani’s GoPro helmet camera, which is now on the floor. Ms Head says that moments before, she’d turned to the camera and asked viewers “can you hear this?” (Ms Kamio’s bloodcurdling screams), because she wanted it documented, and then it really doesn’t look great in retrospect, but it’s a bit like giggling at a funeral, they were so terrified it was like a silly thing to do – they recorded a piece to camera laughing about the equipment they’d smashed.
Menon asked if she was aware of what was going on nearby (the alleged assault on a police officer), and whether once she heard about it, if that was part of any plan. She said it shouldn’t have happened, she didn’t want it to happen, and it wasn’t planned to happen. As much as she didn’t agree with what the company does, no-one should have got hurt.
Mr. Menon took her through what happened in the following days. Ms Head was arrested and walked out with the police, then taken to a nearby police station. She was rearrested on suspicion of having committed a ‘terrorism offence’. But to be clear she was never charged with such an offence. She was taken to a counter-terrorism unit in Hammersmith. This shocked and confused her – she wondered if the gas canister had exploded or something. She was crying because everything got surreal, because she was still expecting bail. There was no contact with a solicitor until she got to Hammersmith. There Simon Natas (ITN solicitors) finally had a private consultation with her. She was interviewed a number of times between 9th and 12th of August. A part of a written statement which has been agreed with the prosecution team contains the phrase “I am not a terrorist”.
Mr Menon began to refer to why Ms Head might have chosen not to answer any questions in police interview, asking if she’d received any advice from Mr. Natas. She began to reply that he’d said ‘because of the seriousness of the situation’… At that point prosecutor Ms Heer intervened.
Mr. Menon rephrased his question, simply asking whether she’d been advised not to give comment and to write a prepared statement instead. Ms Head confirmed this.
She confirmed that she was charged with the 3 offences, not terrorism, and been in custody for 16 months. Several bail applications have been refused.
Returning to the questions he opened with, Mr. Menon asked “At the time you entered that factory in Filton, near Bristol, did you intend to use a sledgehammer or any other article to cause injury to anyone or incapacitate anyone if the need arose?”
Ms Head gave a loud and clear response. “No, not at all.”
Judge Johnson told Mr. Menon his timing was impeccable, as the time by now was 4.30, and the jury was told to return in the morning at 10.15.
