“The policewoman attacked by a sledgehammer” has been the constant refrain of the government against Palestine Action. A couple of days before the judicial review of the proscription in England, and despite fierce reporting restrictions on the trial, the prosecution released to the media highly edited video footage from the current trial in Woolwich Crown Court of six activists accused of the attack inside Elbit Systems’ Filton factory on August 6 2024.
While that video has fuelled tens of thousands of Zionist troll posts on social media, the remarkable thing is that it is almost impossible to establish what it shows.
In fact, had it been put out without the prosecution narrative, nobody would have discerned that is what they were looking at. It shows chaotic fast-moving footage from bodycams.
The first sledgehammer seen is plainly in the hands of a security guard – as testimony in the trial, ignored by the MSM, has explained.
Here are some key facts:
- Every single prosecution witness who gave evidence about the melee was obliged to change their statement when confronted by the defence with video evidence which contradicted it. This included much more video than was released by the prosecution.
- The prosecution produced a misleading account of the number and location of CCTV cameras in the factory. They were obliged to present a new map showing more cameras.
- The video evidence was left in or given into the hands of Elbit. A search of Elbit’s premises in November 2025 found the USB sticks of video in their Metropolitan Police evidence bags in Elbit’s safe.
The last fact is simply astonishing. The evidence collected and apparently correctly bagged by the police had simply been handed over to Elbit, apparently for over a year. This is only a part of a much wider collusion between Elbit and the UK state, including the police.
One of the key demands of the Palestine Action hunger strikers in other cases – of whom I will write further shortly – is the full release of correspondence between Elbit and UK authorities including the counter-terrorism police, which has been partially released and in very heavily redacted format.
Judge Johnson has directed the jury that the events in the Filton trial predated the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist action and they must not allow that subsequent development to influence them in any way.
There are six defendants in the current Woolwich trial, allegedly members of the “overt group” or “red group” who entered inside the facility to do damage, while a second “black” or “covert group” allegedly carried out a noisy distractive action.
Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin are charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder.
In addition Samuel Corner is charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, an offence potentially resulting in life imprisonment.
I must at this stage congratulate Real Media, who have been doing a wonderful job of reporting the key events in the trial. As is to be expected, the mainstream media has published nothing except what has been served up to them on behalf of the prosecution and the state.
I am going to publish some key extracts that give you an idea of what has been going on:
Extract from the cross examination of Elbit security guard Mr Shaw:
After a break for lunch, it was time for Mr. Shaw to be cross-examined by defence barristers, beginning with Mr. Menon, who first asked him whether he knew at the time of the incident that “Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer”. The prosecution immediately objected, and Judge Johnson told Menon that if he wanted to ask questions like this they would need to have a discussion about it later. Mr. Menon requested an answer from Mr. Shaw, but the judge insisted he move on. The context appeared to be that Menon went on to ask whether the guard was aware of Palestine Action’s protests and actions against the company, and whether he’d been given specific training in relation to protest. Shaw said he’d received verbal instruction to call police and to intervene if it was safe to do so.
Menon then went on to the first interaction, after the van had been seen and heard hitting the shutters. There was then a very confused exchange in which Shaw was adamant he had had a struggle with an Arabic-looking man wielding an axe, prior to the point at which he is seen in footage running at someone and hitting them several times with an umbrella and bringing them to the ground. His recollection didn’t seem to be backed up by evidence, and Menon reminded him he’d told the jury earlier about a man with an axe, but he maintained that in his mind that was a separate incident before what we saw on video. He was asked whether any injuries he received had occurred inside the factory, and he affirmed they had all happened before he went in, that is, he didn’t receive any contact from anyone in the ‘red team’.
Barrister Mr Wainwright, acting for Samuel Corner, picked up on the answers just given. In Shaw’s witness statement (given later in the day after the event) he had referred to just one incident outside the building, but now seemed confused as to whether there were two. He agreed there didn’t seem to be any evidence of two incidents.
Moving on, once he was in the building, we’d seen Shaw running towards people wielding his umbrella. His evidence had suggested he was threatened and attacked – he also said the group had tried to get him to open a door to give them access to offices. On reviewing the footage and under cross-examination he conceded they were telling him to leave, to ‘fuck off’, and not to give them access. He was also shown footage of Samuel Corner leading the way and showing him how he could go out via the shutter – a female, thought to be Kamio, also asks him if he’s OK and tells him he needs to go because he is bleeding. Mr. Shaw concedes what is being evidenced, and also that he then followed Mr Corner who had begun smashing a toilet area, and tried to trap him in there by holding the door for a while before deciding to go outside. Shaw agreed that no-one in the building had struck him.
Extract from cross-examination of security guard Mr Volante
In evidence yesterday, Volante had claimed that Kamio approached him with an angle grinder. He was shown footage in which she actually appeared to be holding a sledgehammer, while it was Volante himself who appeared to hold an angle grinder in one hand and a small hammer in the other, and was swinging them. Ms Hammad accused Volante of being very angry, causing one of the activists, Mr. Devlin, to tell him to ‘calm down’. The guard said he was ‘animated’ rather than angry, wasn’t using the tools as weapons, and was attempting to disarm the intruders. It can be seen that that Mr. Devlin is actually unarmed. Kamio is seen moving around with a sledgehammer, and then using it to smash up some computer equipment. Volante agrees that at no point is she seen with an angle grinder, let alone threatening him with it.
Barrister for Zoe Rogers, Ms Mogan shows footage of Volante in the corridor with a whip in his hand screaming at Ms Rogers and others that they were “being recorded”. Mogan reminded him that he was aware of previous Palestine Action protests aimed at damaging Elbit equipment, and that yesterday he had said he had grabbed a sledgehammer off Mr Devlin. Playing footage, it seemed to show him actually seizing the sledgehammer off Zoe, and she gets flung towards a wall. It also looks like he is then holding the sledgehammer with its head out in front of him, and Zoe picks up another sledgehammer from the floor, struggling with its weight and turning through 360 degrees as he approaches her with his hammer in front of him.
Yesterday Volante told the court that her hammer made contact with him, but now he accepts that that wasn’t in his statement to the police, and that it may not have done. Ms Mogan suggested he had swung his sledgehammer at Zoe, showing some more footage, in which the shadow of the hammer appeared as though raised, and Zoe covering her face in response. He had already accepted that he had kicked Mr Devlin, and he now acceded that Zoe might have “thought” that the hammer would hit her, but maintained he hadn’t swung it at her. Volante also agreed that, although his BWV was no longer recording at that time, it was “possible” that Ms Rogers ended up on the ground.
Mr Morris, barrister for Jordan Devlin, then asked Mr Volante to acknowledge that police officers had shown him unedited footage from his own BWV a few days before trial, and asked whether he noticed anything additional to what he’d described in his original statement at the time, especially that when he entered the building he clearly had one of the whips in his hand. Volante said he hadn’t noticed that. Mr. Morris suggested that Volante had run down the corridor with whip in hand, screaming at Mr. Devlin who was unarmed, and inquired whether Volante had used any de-escalation training, rather than engaging in force on first contact with Devlin and Rogers. Morris asked whether he was registered with the Security Industries Association (SIA) and whether their training included hitting someone in the face with the handle of a sledgehammer. Volante said that any such contact was unintentional and that that was why he also hadn’t mentioned it in his police statement.
Mr. Morris showed the court a screenshot from footage, that appeared to show contact described, and then handed out several photos of injuries that Mr. Devlin had sustained. One shows a round red mark that Mr. Morris suggests is the shape of a sledgehammer head. Volante is also asked about any conversation they had in the struggle, and whether when they were face-to-face, he had tried to bite Mr. Devlin on the neck. He said Mr. Devlin had likened the struggle to Star Wars and that he was a rebel or Jedi to Mr. Volante’s empire, but that no bite had occurred.
After the struggle in the alcove, the next time Devlin and Volante engaged was when the police had arrived. Volante denies he hit Devlin in the face with the edge of the hammer, but admits he then put him in a choke hold, which under further questioning he reveals he learnt from martial arts training which he’d done when younger, reaching a blue belt in JuJitsu but only a white belt in TaeKwondo. Volante described the manoeuvre as a ‘rear naked choke hold’, which could be dangerous if not administered properly. He is shown a further photograph of marks to Devlin’s neck, but says he hadn’t caused those. A police BWV video sequence is shown where Mr. Devlin attempts to stand up, and Volante uses the handle of the sledgehammer against his neck to force him back down. A disagreement ensues, in which Volante claims he was defending himself and trying to prevent Devlin from grabbing the sledgehammer, while Morris argues that Devlin poses no threat at the time and Volante was performing an aggressive and dangerous act. Another photo showed Devlin’s bruised face and black eye, corresponding to the side of his face that Volante was accused of hitting. Volante admits that he struck him and that he fell back.
Footage shows Devlin telling the police Volante had assaulted him and pointing at his face. Mr. Morris also notes to the court, that although referred to throughout as Scottish, Mr. Devlin’s accent is actually Northern Irish.
Now we have extracts from the cross-examination of a third security guard. Mr Luke:
After a short break, Mr Menon cross-examines Mr. Luke and takes him through the footage once more. He agrees that the first woman is holding a whip and he seizes it off her – and although he claims she used it against him there doesn’t appear to be video of that. While he’s grappling with the woman who originally held a sledgehammer, the other woman hands her hammer to the male and runs off somewhere. After a bit more confusion, Mr. Luke agrees that the next time he sees the two women, it is after what Menon describes as Mr. Volante’s ‘Incredible Hulk’ moment, and that they remain on the ground compliant until they are arrested by police.
Samuel Corner’s barrister, Mr. Wainright, then speaks to Mr. Luke pointing out that several of his assertions have turned out to be wrong. He was wrong about the sequence of events, he was wrong that a female passed a sledgehammer to a male who tried to use it against him. In his police statement Mr. Luke said he disarmed two women of a sledgehammer and an angle grinder, but later accepted this was wrong too. Mr. Wainwright took Luke through footage once more and showed that he had mixed which of the two males had the sledgehammer, which direction they had come from, and indeed whether anyone had actually tried to hit him.
Ms Hammad (for Leona Kamio) tried to clear up confusion of the order of events, and particularly at what point Mr. Luke had actually switched his camera on. He had said he started recording after hitting the panic button in the control room, but Ms Hammad showed footage that appeared to show him entering the warehouse from the loading bay area before that. She suggested that he had had some sort of tussle with one of the females at that point (before switching on his BWV) and then he went to the control room. Mr. Luke was adamant this was not the case. Ms Hammad finished her questioning by asking him whether he had been hit by the woman with the sledgehammer – he said he thought it had grazed him, but accepted it hadn’t hit him. Ms Hammad suggested he had merely grabbed it.
Next, Ms Oborne asked some questions about the allegation that Fatema Rajwani had a bag of fireworks and was intending to throw one at him. Taking him through his BWV footage once more, he acceded there didn’t appear to be any bag, or possibly any fireworks, and that in fact Ms Rajwani had taken a simple flare out of her pocket.
Now we have an extract from the evidence of a policeman, PC Buxton, under cross-examination:
The barrister reminds Buxton that when he entered the building there was loud noise and a horrible smell, and then shows the officer some video of the confrontation between the security guard and the intruder. The guard (Volante) is seen pushing the handle of the sledgehammer against the brown-haired male’s neck, and Buxton is asked if he remembered seeing that – he said he didn’t remember it. Wainright (who acts for Mr. Corner, the blonde man) shows footage showing Corner swing his hammer in order to hit the hammer held by the guard, and Buxton accedes that is what it looks like.
Next, Buxton is seen in the footage using his spray, and he agrees that Corner is not wearing any eye protection at that moment. Wainright asks him about the struggle with the brown-haired male on the floor, and about the moment that Corner returns. Buxton had given a video statement a couple of days after the incident, in which he describes Corner swinging the sledgehammer, and saying that although he wasn’t absolutely sure if it had hit him, he thought it probably had, because he remembered feeling pain, and because a bruise appeared a few days later. Mr. Wainright remarks that the officer also hadn’t mentioned damage to the radio in any earlier evidence, and Buxton agreed that it could have been away from his body on the floor somewhere.
Mr. Wainright also asked the jury to note that in Buxton’s evidence he said “I remember a horrible scream” which referred to the point at which one of the women was tazered.
Mr. Morris (acting for brown-haired Jordan Devlin) then takes over cross-examination, and asks Buxton to look once more at the footage, this time slowed down. When the video first shows the three people in red, Mr. Morris asks the officer whether he had noticed the security guard on his right holding a sledgehammer. He replies that he can’t remember. He was also asked when he’d first seen the footage and whether it was before writing his first statement. After challenging Mr. Morris as to whether it was a strike or whether it was a push that the guard administered with the sledgehammer on Devlin’s neck, Buxton does agree that his statement claimed the sledgehammer was in Devlin’s hands, but now realises that it was the guard who was actually holding it. The barrister asked the officer whether he knew why the guard had a sledgehammer, and he answered that he didn’t.
Now, it is not in dispute that the Palestine Action team entered the factory with sledgehammers and other equipment, intending to damage machinery and weapons in order to disrupt Israeli arms supply. It is also not in dispute that a policewoman, Sergeant Evans, was injured. But how she got injured, how the melee developed and who hit who is a key question.
What is evident from these exchanges is that the security guards and police are unreliable witnesses.
It is not merely that their evidence differs from what is shown by the video cameras.
It is that, consistently, their sworn evidence is untrue in a way that always makes the Palestine Action activists more aggressive, and themselves more passive, than in fact was the case.
Whether this is malicious, or merely the natural tendency of the human brain in a chaotic and scary situation to see things in the way it wishes, is not immediately evident. The answer to that will become plain when the defendants give evidence, and we start to see whether they too gave accounts inconsistent with the video evidence.
There is also the question of major gaps in video recordings and of the cameras in the “alcove” where much of the action took place apparently producing no footage, as so often happens when convenient to the authorities.
The cross-examination about the police handling of the video evidence is also highly revealing, here with PC Grant:
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”.
It is hard to imagine a plainer admission that a serving British police officer saw her primary duty as helping Israel’s largest arms manufacturer to secure convictions, rather than establishing the truth.
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.
….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.
And this from the cross-examination of Detective Constable Hammersley from the Counter Terrorism Police:
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.
After a busy week of traveling I had intended to attend the start of the defence case on Wednesday, but the trial was suspended due to a juror suffering a bereavement. I therefore only managed to attend the trial in person on Thursday morning, with the evidence of the first defendant, Charlotte Head.
Again, Real Media have done a superb job of covering Charlotte’s testimony. I would add only a few atmospherics.
This was my first time back in Woolwich Crown Court, attached to Belmarsh jail, since it hosted the first week of Julian Assange’s extradition proceedings six years ago.
The area is still as bleak, the weather still cold, wet and windy, and the court as unremittingly gulag worthy, as six years ago.
I was slightly worried on arrival that I did not have a passport on me, but as in proceedings at the High Court it was not required for entry. When I had attended the Assange hearings here they had insisted on passports and entered everyone’s details. They had also attempted to confiscate notebooks and pens in the public gallery. This Filton trial however was much more normal.
The courtroom is a mirror image of that used for the Assange case. The six accused were seated in a glass box at the back, spaced out evenly perhaps two metres apart from each other. The public gallery is raised at a mezzanine level, running down the left-hand side of the court, but completely sealed off with security glass. The courtroom sound is piped in to the public gallery through loudspeakers.
We could not see the jury, who are directly below the public gallery. Judge James Johnson, in his long wig and scarlet gown, presided from a dais. There was plainly great tension between the judge and the various defence counsel (each defendant having a team). I have never seen a judge spoken to with such obvious intonation of disrespect. Johnson’s face repeatedly flushed as crimson as his robe.
Some of the highest drama in this trial consists in the discussions on admissibility of evidence when the jury is sent out. This was again the case on Thursday when I was there. Unfortunately reporting restrictions prevent me from telling you what this is about, until the trial is over, when I shall have much to say.
Charlotte Head was plainly extremely nervous. Before moving from the glass case to the witness box, she vigorously shook out her arms and particularly her hands to relieve the tension, and did so as though unaware she could be observed. At several points she was visibly struggling to collect herself.
She did however come over as intelligent, competent and concerned. How far the jury can connect with people coming from an activist background and sensibility will be a key factor in the outcome.
The key point of Head’s very full evidence is that absolutely at no point was violence against people planned or envisaged. As at similar actions the expectation was that the security guards would not physically intervene and that they would have 20 minutes or so to cause property damage before the police arrived.
In the event it had all instead escalated extremely quickly.
This trial is a real ordeal for the female prisoners. Their journey in the extremely uncomfortable prison van from Bronzefield Prison takes between three and five hours each way, every day. On a typical day they are awoken at 5:30am and do not get back into their individual cells until 10:30pm, with only the limited lunch at Woolwich Crown Court as hot food; this five days a week.
It is also important to highlight the injuries Jordan Devlin suffered from the security guards. This from Charlotte Head:
Andrew Morris (representing Jordan Devlin) asks Ms Head to look at the photograph of Devlin’s right arm, and asks her whether when she attended court on 13th August had she seen his injury. She said he had a pure black bruise all over one side, “like nothing she’d seen before”, over mostly his ribs and underarm. He also had a bad black eye. Shown another picture of his face, she confirmed that’s what it looked like, but said she was so shocked about the body bruising that she hardly remembered the eye.
These are noted in this description of the agreed facts of the case between prosecution and defence:
Mr Devlin’s numerous injuries were recorded and on the following evening the custody officer authorised his escorted transfer to hospital, noting that large bruises were forming which Devlin said were caused by a sledgehammer.
The defendants were moved to Hammersmith Police Station the next day, and a list of Devlin’s injuries were recorded there, which included hight shoulder tricep area was swollen, injuries to both wrists and his right cheek, a bump on his head, black right eye, bruised shins, thighs, and left arm, a bruised right elbow, and his left pectoral.
You will recall the police did not think Mr Devlin’s injuries worth noting in their statements. In addition to which one female activist, Leona Kamio, was twice tasered, the second time “by accident” while prone and restrained.
Remember this is a case in which the prosecution narrative has been put forward as fact by both the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Where there has been so much said by senior figures to the defendants’ detriment, the running sore of the matters to be kept from the jury become still more problematic.
It is also simply remarkable that the prosecution’s highly selective and edited video evidence has been put into the public domain and has notably affected the public narrative, but that the defence video evidence may not be made public.
But then I gave up on expecting justice from the system long ago. Happily juries often represent the last defence of a true spirit of fairness.
The trial continues. Do follow on Real Media – the state and corporate media will never give you the truth of it.
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