A high-profile trial of six Palestine Action activists charged over a 2024 break-in at an Israeli-owned arms factory outside Bristol has opened with dramatic revelations about serious flaws in the prosecution’s key CCTV evidence, Woolwich Crown Court has heard. The six defendants — Charlotte Head, 29, Jordan Devlin, 31, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, Samuel Corner, 23, and Leona Kamio, 30 — all face counts of criminal damage linked to the August 2024 incursion at the facility operated by Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest defense manufacturing firms. An additional charge of grievous bodily harm with intent has been leveled against Corner, who is accused of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer during the incident. Giving evidence on the first day of testimony, PC Sarah Grant, a specialist police officer trained in retrieving CCTV evidence from crime scenes, told jurors that the Elbit factory’s closed-circuit television system was functionally unsuitable for evidentiary use. Multiple cameras on the site operated at just 17 frames per second, a far lower rate than standard systems designed to capture clear, continuous footage of activity, Grant explained. During cross-examination, lead defense barrister Rajiv Menon KC drew jurors’ attention to what have been widely described as “perceived gaps” in the footage that the prosecution has entered into the court record. The case has already revealed a chaotic chain of custody for the video evidence: Elbit Systems first provided police with recordings from nine of the site’s 53 total cameras on a USB drive, but the files were incompatible with police computer systems, forcing Grant to travel to the factory site personally to recover the footage directly. Grant told the court that when she arrived at Elbit’s on-site security control room, she was first shown only footage from the original nine cameras, before requesting access to the full suite of 53 cameras displayed across the facility’s video monitoring wall. She attempted to download recordings from all 53 devices, but told the court that the operation would have required a full 24 days to complete, making the task unfeasible. Instead, she elected to download the original nine camera feeds, plus an additional three that were flagged as potentially relevant to the incident. Grant told the court that in her 11-year career working to recover CCTV evidence, she had never encountered a system as difficult to access and download from as Elbit’s. When questioned by the prosecution, Grant maintained that she had secured all relevant footage connected to the break-in. But Menon pushed back on that claim, highlighting that two cameras positioned directly on the factory floor have no surviving footage in the prosecution’s evidence set. When asked whether she had requested Elbit security staff to explain why footage from these two cameras was missing, Grant confirmed she had not asked for any explanation. Menon suggested that Elbit staff may never have shown her the footage from the two cameras at all, a claim Grant rejected, telling the court “I saw all the cameras. I had control and they showed me what I asked them to show.” In a pre-trial email Grant sent to a senior Elbit security manager, who is identified only as Witness A to protect their identity, she explicitly raised concerns about the system’s poor functionality, warning that “there is a huge opportunity for the defence to use the jumps and gaps in the footage to their advantage” — a warning that has been borne out in the defense’s cross-examination strategy. When questioned about the email, Grant reaffirmed that her core point remained that the system was “not fit for purpose.” On the second day of testimony, the court heard harrowing first-hand evidence from PC Kate Evans, the officer Corner is accused of striking with a sledgehammer. Evans told jurors that at the time of the alleged attack, she was on her hands and knees on the ground, facing away from Corner, while adjusting the handcuffs on co-defendant Zoe Rogers. She said she felt the blow from the sledgehammer spread across her entire body, and recalled immediately fearing the worst. “I didn’t know if I could move, or whether I would be paralysed,” Evans told the court. Fellow officer PC Peter Adams backed up Evans’ account, telling jurors that Corner struck the blow with “a considerable amount of force.” Evans did not return to active duty until three months after the incident, and told the court she continues to experience daily chronic pain that limits her to restricted duties at work. Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC drew the court’s attention to a comment Corner made immediately after his arrest, when he told officers: “I was protecting her.” Evans told the court she believes the comment referred to one of Corner’s female co-defendants, though he did not specify which. The court also heard context for the chaos of the incident: at the time of the alleged attack on Evans, Kamio was screaming after being tackled by Adams, who had deployed a taser against her just moments before. Defending Corner, barrister Tom Wainwright highlighted that Adams himself recalled hearing a “horrible scream” in video testimony he gave to police the day after the incident. Wainwright also brought up evidence that another officer, PC Aaron Buxton, had sprayed Corner with PAVA spray, an incapacitating chemical agent, moments before the alleged attack. Wainwright noted that the spray causes acute pain, confusion and disorientation that can persist for an extended period of time, raising questions about Corner’s state of mind and capacity to form intent. The trial of the six activists is ongoing, with further testimony expected in the coming days. Palestine Action, the activist group the defendants are affiliated with, has a long history of direct action protests targeting facilities tied to Israeli arms manufacturers, arguing that such companies profit from human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories.
UK: Footage used in Palestine Action trial contains ‘perceived gaps’, court hears
