Eight Palestine Action affiliates are currently on trial at London’s Old Bailey, facing charges of violent disorder and criminal damage linked to a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems-owned Israeli arms manufacturing facility near Bristol, with one defendant already acquitted on the more serious charge. The case centers on allegations that the eight defendants coordinated the August 6 break-in at the Filton plant through pre-raid reconnaissance and equipment purchases, though none are accused of physically entering the factory site themselves. All defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are brought under the UK’s joint enterprise doctrine, a legal framework that allows prosecutors to hold co-conspirators liable for offenses committed by other participants in a planned action.
One defendant, 53-year-old Edinburgh-based artist Hannah Davidson, broke down in tears while giving evidence this week, describing the traumatic aftermath of her August 7 counter-terrorism arrest as a trigger for chronic post-traumatic stress disorder that affects all co-defendants. Davidson recalled being transferred to a Newbury counter-terrorism detention unit after being taken from her home, where she said she was held incommunicado for days with no access to legal representation. While prosecutors later corrected her timeline, noting she first spoke to a solicitor 31.5 hours after arrest, Davidson told the court her perception of the experience was distorted by an autistic meltdown that left her disoriented and struggling to breathe. “It was just horrifying. We all just have really chronic PTSD about that period. We just disappeared,” she told jurors.
Davidson also detailed to the court what drove her to become involved in pro-Palestinian direct action, tracing her activism back to the October 2023 escalation of Israeli military operations in Gaza. A former youth services worker who rebuilt her life as an artist after housing instability during the Covid-19 pandemic, Davidson described being completely shattered by graphic social media footage of civilian casualties in Gaza. She recalled quitting her job at a storage facility after spending hours daily crying while watching crisis updates, saying she turned first to traditional advocacy: writing to politicians and lobbying local government through the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee in Edinburgh. The turning point, she said, came in February 2024, when Prime Minister Keir Starmer ordered Labour MPs to vote against a Scottish National Party parliamentary motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. “It just made me realise that all of this letter writing was not going to work, it wasn’t going to happen,” she explained.
Davidson told the court she attended a Palestine Action training day in Edinburgh in April 2024, and only agreed to take on a limited behind-the-scenes role as a driver for the Filton action days before the raid, after organizers said they were short on support staff. She acknowledged she was aware the action would involve criminal damage to the factory, but said she had no knowledge of plans for violent tactics and only reviewed planning documents related to her driving role. She denied prosecutors’ claims that she was a core coordinator of the raid, telling the court “It sounds terribly naive considering the trouble we’re in now, which I could not have foreseen.”
Co-defendant Teuta Hoxha, 30, also took the witness stand Friday, tearfully describing her own path to activism after the October 2023 Gaza escalation. Before joining Palestine Action, Hoxha said she pursued traditional advocacy: writing to UK government departments, partnering with local mosques, and running fundraising stalls for Gaza. She said a graphic social media video of a Gaza father holding the dismembered remains of his children in plastic bags pushed her to join more direct action, calling the moment the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Hoxha, who had previously participated in non-violent Palestine Action protests using the “lock-on” tactic where activists attach themselves to infrastructure, told jurors she had no idea the group planned violent action when she joined. Prosecutors accuse her of coordinating the Filton raid by conducting pre-action surveillance of the site, but Hoxha said any reconnaissance she completed was for a general pool of potential actions across the UK, not specifically for the Filton raid. She told the court she only traveled to Bristol days before the action to manage GoPro cameras for the protest, handling logistics like charging batteries and installing SIM cards for footage that would be used to publicize the action and document Elbit’s weapons work. Her trial testimony echoed Davidson’s: she denies any role in coordinating the raid.
Last week, presiding judge Patrick Field acquitted defendant William Plastow, 35, of the violent disorder charge, ruling that prosecutors had failed to present sufficient evidence to support the allegation. Plastow still faces a separate charge of criminal damage in connection with the raid. The trial of the eight remaining defendants is ongoing.