Bodycam footage from August 6, 2024, shows suspects in a break in at Elbit UK's site in Bristol, England, in which one intruder allegedly struck a police officer with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine (Courtesy Thames Valley Police)

Four Palestine Action members convicted over 2024 raid on Israeli arms firm’s UK site

Jurors in retrial also find one defendant guilty of striking police officer with a sledgehammer and fracturing her spine during break-in at Elbit’s Bristol factory

by · The Times of Israel

Four British Palestine Action members were convicted Tuesday of smashing a UK site of Israeli defense firm Elbit in 2024, with one defendant found guilty of twice striking a police officer with a sledgehammer.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer said the attack was “meticulously organized” to cause maximum damage and get information about the company. The raid caused an estimated 1 million pounds ($1.36 million) in damage.

After deliberating for more than 14 hours, jurors in Woolwich Crown Court found Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, guilty of criminal damage in the raid in Bristol on August 6, 2024. They face sentencing June 12. Two others, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, were acquitted of criminal damage.

Head was behind the wheel of a van that crashed through the gates of the Elbit Systems factory in Bristol, where the four activists, dressed in red jumpsuits, began destroying property with sledgehammers and crowbars before ending up in a fight with guards and police.

Samuel Corner (far right) and other Palestine Action activists Jordan Devlin, Leona Kamio, Charlotte Head, Fatema Rajwani and Zoe Rogers. (Used under clause 27a of the Israeli copyright law. Taken from social media)

By a majority of 11 to one, jurors also found Corner guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm, but cleared the 23-year-old of the more serious charge of grievous bodily harm with intent.

Corner was filmed during the raid bringing a sledgehammer down on Sgt. Kate Evans, fracturing her spine.

Palestine Action said it sought to dismantle drones and weaponry that the group believed would be used to kill people, and the defendants argued that the escalation in their clashes with security and police had not been part of the plan.

An elderly man is escorted away by police as protesters gather to call for the lifting of the ban on the anti-Israel group Palestine Action during a demonstration in Trafalgar Square in central London on April 11, 2026. (CARLOS JASSO / AFP)

Tuesday’s verdict against the anti-Israel activists followed a retrial, after a different jury in February cleared the six of aggravated burglary but failed to reach verdicts regarding criminal damage and some other charges.

The attack in Bristol was one of the events that led the government to proscribe Palestine Action last year. London’s High Court has called that decision unlawful, but kept the ban in place while the government appeals.

Attacks on Jewish and Israeli sites abroad have spiked amid the war sparked in Gaza by the Hamas-led onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, while the UK has seen a surge in antisemitic attacks in recent weeks.