Palestine Action defendants wanted to 'destroy as many weapons as possible', court told
Palestine Action defendants facing charges in connection with a raid on an Israeli-owned factory wanted to “destroy as many weapons as possible” and “shut the site down”, an English court heard on Wednesday.
Defendants Charlotte Head, 29, Jordan Devlin, 31, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, Samuel Corner, 23, and Leona Kamio, 30, face charges of criminal damage in connection with a break-in to a factory owned by Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems near Bristol in August 2024.
Corner additionally faces a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent for allegedly striking a police officer with a sledgehammer.
When cross-examined by lead defence counsel Rajiv Menon KC in London's Woolwich Crown Court on Tuesday, Head said that she went into the factory with the intention to “destroy as many weapons as possible and shut the site down”.
Jurors were shown photographs of weapons and military equipment damaged in the raid.
Head identified some of the objects as a “battle simulator” and quadcopter military drones.
In a statement given by Head on 5 December 2025, she said the group “were told best thing to look for military equipment,” adding that if they couldn’t access particular areas, they were advised to “try and flood it to try and cause as much damage to property in time available”.
When asked by Menon if she had damaged property in the factory that belonged to someone else, she responded “yes”, but added that she and her co-defendants “believed we had the lawful excuse to do so”.
The court heard that Head had volunteered as a 19-year-old supporting refugees in Calais, where she witnessed French police assaulting people. She described one incident when a child “had his eyes shot out”. She said she would often try to leave Calais, but would always return as “I couldn’t just exist knowing that was going on”.
“I was raised to be kind to people: it’s something my mum and my grandma instilled in me,” Head told the court.
The defendant said that since then, she has “been involved in a lot of antiwar stuff… some people call that political, but for me it’s to stop people from getting hurt”.
Jurors heard that two months before her arrest, Head had taken part in a protest camp outside Hackney town hall, demanding the council divest money from its pension fund, which she said is invested in “Israel and the arms industry”.
Head said she contributed to a deputation to the council requesting it divest from Israeli weapons, but described the process as a “farce”, and felt “really helpless” in the aftermath.
Looking back on her activism before her participation in the Elbit Systems raid, Head described her work as a “sticking plaster”.
“You’re asking again and again and again, and it just felt completely ineffective and really demoralising,” she told the court.
Head recalled that, when she signed up to participate in the raid on 6 August, she had “tried everything else”.
“At this point, it felt like I was watching all this awful stuff happen online, and I can’t live with myself if I don’t do everything that I can,” she said.
‘Out of my depth’
On Wednesday, jurors also heard evidence from Corner, who told the court that he had entered the factory on 6 August intending “to destroy weapons and things needed to make weapons, which we believed were going to be used to cause death and destruction”.
The court heard that the 23-year-old graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in linguistics and philosophy. At the time of the incident, he said he was preparing to apply for a master's degree.
Corner said that, due to having an autism spectrum and ADHD diagnosis, he struggles to remember events or how he was feeling at a particular time, “especially if I was overwhelmed”.
'It sounded like she was being seriously hurt'
- Samuel Corner, Palestine Action activist on trial
He added that he is “pretty terrible” at thinking on his feet.
Both Corner and Head said that before the incident on 6 August, they had been assured by experienced activists that security guards would not intervene, as this had been the case with previous raids conducted by Palestine Action.
When the group successfully rammed through the factory shutters with a prison van and entered the factory floor, Corner said he felt “out of my depth” and “didn’t know what to do”.
“We hadn’t been prepared for what to do when we were inside. We had discussed it a bit, but… for me, I felt underprepared,” Corner said.
Jurors heard that PC Aaron Buxton fired Pava spray - an incapacitant - at Corner.
Lawyer Tom Wainwright, who represents Corner, explained that the spray can cause pain, confusion and disorientation, which “lasts for some time”.
Corner said the fluid hit him “square in the face”.
Jurors were shown body-worn camera footage appearing to show Corner moments after the incident walking away with his hands raised to his face.
Corner told the court he was trying to “alleviate effects of the Pava, the pain”, adding that he “couldn’t see, I couldn’t open my eyes initially”.
“Luckily I could walk away and not hit anything. But there was all-consuming pain on my face and my eyes, and hands,” he said.
The court was also shown footage from Buxton’s body-worn camera, which appeared to show the officer struggling with Corner’s co-defendant Devlin.
In the video, Corner appears above Buxton, raises his sledgehammer and brings it down on him.
When asked by Wainwright if he could remember the interaction, Corner said he could not, but added that, at that point, “I could only just open my eyes” and that he could only make out shapes and colours.
Jurors also saw PC Peter Adams’ body-worn camera footage, which appeared to show the officer grappling with Kamio. The defendant, who had been tasered by Adams moments before, is heard screaming, “You’re fucking hurting me.”
When questioned by Wainwright, Corner told the court he could “hear” and “vaguely see” his co-defendants “being assaulted by security guards”.
Corner also recalled a “really strong chemical smell” and the sound of the alarm at the time, saying that “everything about the environment was really overwhelming”.
He told jurors that he was feeling “very scared, especially for the others”, referring to his co-defendants.
Corner said that he had initially thought his co-defendant Rogers was the one screaming and that he was “really concerned for her, because she’s small”.
“It sounded like she was being seriously hurt,” Corner said.
‘Capable of causing serious injury’
Last week, Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the court that Corner had struck PC Kate Evans twice in the back while she was on all fours, facing away from him and trying to arrest Rogers.
On Wednesday, Corner told jurors he could not recall striking Evans.
Wainwright said, citing evidence given by Evans, that Corner had said following his arrest that he was “trying to protect” his co-defendants.
Corner recalled that he was “shocked and scared” when he was informed by police that he was being arrested for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
When asked by Wainwright if he ever intended to use his sledgehammer against a person, he responded: “No.”
“I wasn’t trying to cause any serious harm to anyone. It wasn’t something I ever saw myself doing or being arrested for or associated with,” he told the court.
When cross-examining Corner, Heer asked him if it was “obvious” to him that “if you were to hit a person with that sledgehammer, it was capable of causing serious injury?”
Corner responded that he was “panicking” and “in pain” due to the Pava spray.
Heer said: “Before you went into the factory, when you were lucid, and not overwhelmed. Do you agree that it would have been obvious to you, that if you were to hit a person with that sledgehammer, it was capable of causing really serious injury?”
Corner responded: “Yes.”
Heer then asked: “Are you saying then, that at the time you used it, hit PC Evans over the back, that knowledge was something you had forgotten?”
Corner said it “wasn’t something I had been thinking about”.
“That wasn’t the plan. That’s not something you do in a situation that isn’t absolutely desperate and when you don't have time to think,” he added.
Last week, the court heard evidence from PC Evans that she had felt the impact of the sledgehammer’s blow “disperse across my whole body”.
“I didn't know if I could move, or whether I would be paralysed,” Evans told the court.
Her colleague Adams told the court that Corner hit Evans with a “considerable amount of force”.
The court heard that Evans was unable to return to work until three months after the incident, that she experiences daily pain and is constrained to restricted duties.
Heer told jurors on Wednesday that Evans had suffered a “fracture to the transverse process of the fourth lumbar, with additional likely fractures to the right side transverse process of L2 and L3 vertebrae”.
The trial continues.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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