A high-profile trial of six Palestine Action activists opened this week at London’s Woolwich Crown Court, with shocking testimony about police use of force and violent confrontations during an August 2024 raid on an Israeli-owned arms factory near Bristol.
On the first day of witness testimony Thursday, the court heard detailed accounts of the injuries sustained by 30-year-old Leona Kamio, a nursery school teacher from Swansea and one of the six defendants facing joint criminal damage charges linked to the break-in at Elbit Systems’ Filton facility. A medical examination following her arrest documented multiple injuries: taser burns to her right arm and right hip, a bruise to her chin, a small scratch, and a distinct wound to her right hand inflicted by a sledgehammer. Kamio told the court she cannot identify who caused the sledgehammer wound.
Body-worn camera footage from arresting officer PC Peter Adams played in court shows Adams deploying his taser against Kamio during the raid. After being stunned, Kamio was tackled to the ground, where she hit her chin on the floor and went rigid. Kamio described the experience of being tasered as “not good, very painful”, adding that Adams twisted her arm behind her back and attempted to drag her up by her wrist while she screamed in pain. The footage captures Kamio shouting “you’re fucking hitting me” as Adams attempted to place her in handcuffs, calling the officer an “idiot” in response to his own verbal provocation. Kamio emphasized she was not faking her pain or resisting arrest, joking to the court “I failed drama” to underscore the authenticity of her reaction.
Alongside Kamio, the other defendants facing criminal damage charges are Charlotte Head, 29, Jordan Devlin, 31, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and 23-year-old Samuel Corner. Corner faces an additional charge of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm, for allegedly striking two police officers with a sledgehammer during the confrontation.
Testifying earlier on Thursday, Corner – an autistic Oxford graduate with an ADHD diagnosis – explained his actions as a reaction to the panic and disorientation caused by Pava, a synthetic incapacitant pepper spray sprayed at him by PC Aaron Buxton. Corner told the court the spray produced an “all consuming” stinging and burning effect that left him unable to see or focus clearly. He added that he did not initially recognize the approaching responders as police officers, and believed they were aggressive security guards intent on harming him and his fellow activists.
“I was scared about what they were going to do to us, especially the women,” Corner told the court. He explained that when he heard screaming and saw what he believed was a large male security guard attacking a fellow female activist, he acted instinctively. He has since acknowledged the person he struck was Sergeant Kate Evans, a female police officer who was not attacking Rogers, the activist he thought was in danger.
Corner admitted he raised his sledgehammer and struck Evans twice, but said he had no intent to cause her serious harm. When pressed by prosecutor Deanna Heer KC on whether attacking a police officer with a sledgehammer was unreasonable, he responded: “it seemed reasonable to do something and I had to act quite quickly. If I had thought about what it was going to do to her, I agree it would have been unreasonable.” When asked if he understood the severity of harm he could have caused, he replied “I genuinely didn’t.” Footage also shows Corner striking PC Buxton twice with the sledgehammer, though Corner says he has no memory of the encounter.
Multiple character witnesses have described Corner as a gentle, compassionate person with a strong commitment to justice who finds any form of violence abhorrent. The court heard he has even helped fellow prisoners improve their literacy skills while in pre-trial detention.
Kamio, for her part, told the court how she joined Palestine Action in March 2024, after receiving an email from the direct action group about its campaign to close Elbit Systems facilities across the UK. She was soon added to a Signal messaging group to plan the Filton raid, which the group identified as Elbit’s most important UK site, opened in July 2023 by the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The activists’ stated goal, Kamio told the court, was to remain inside the facility for as long as possible to destroy as many weapons components as possible. Organizers had told the group security would not enter the facility, but head of security Nigel Shaw burst into the area within the first five minutes, an encounter that left Kamio frightened. “He looked so angry. Everything about his body language and face was just rage. He was charging towards us,” she said, adding that she believed Shaw was holding his umbrella in a position to strike her. She said she shouted at him to “fuck off” and told him confronting activists was “above your paygrade” – that stopping them was a job for police, not private security. She only later realized Shaw had been injured and was bleeding.
Kamio added that a second security guard, Angelo Volante, appeared extremely unpredictable, swinging an angle grinder and holding a hammer. “I panicked because I’m at Elbit, this is a very evil company, the people that work there describe themselves as being the backbone of the Israeli military,” she explained. She stressed she never intended to harm anyone, and had the sledgehammer taken from her before she could use it against anyone. She also reaffirmed her belief that the action was necessary: “I came here to do something to stop people from suffering. Working with children, I would put one of their lives before any property.”
Kamio’s employer at the Swansea nursery where she works submitted a character reference confirming that her extended pretrial detention has “upset and confused” the children in her care, and that “I cannot imagine her ever hurting anyone.”
The trial, which is being closely watched by activists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is set to continue in the coming days.