A Palestine Action activist accused of taking part in a break-in at an Israeli defence firm\u2019s UK site is a \u201cremarkable woman\u201d, her barrister has told jurors as he likened her to the suffragettes.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Head, 29, is on trial at Woolwich crown court, south-east London, accused of being involved in a \u201cmeticulously organised\u201d protest at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol, on 6 August 2024.<\/p>\n
Head, together with Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, is accused of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. Corner is also charged with causing grievous bodily harm to a police officer, Kate Evans. They deny the charges.<\/p>\n
On Thursday in closing submissions, Head\u2019s barrister, Rajiv Menon KC, detailed his client\u2019s years of activism, including her work with refugees in Calais. He said the suffragettes were celebrated publicly for their heroism but in their time were accused of being \u201ca threat to the social order\u201d and \u201cunladylike, feral, aggressive, violent\u201d by MPs and in the mainstream press.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality, of course, is very different,\u201d Menon told the court. \u201cThe suffragettes were remarkable women from all walks of life united in their hope, their despair, their defiance and their dedication.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharlotte Head is also a remarkable woman and I say that without any reservation. This is not something that lawyers defending clients in criminal trials often say \u2026 we are taught to avoid the personal. But it must be said in this case, not only because it is true but also because it is relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menon described Elbit Systems, of which Elbit Systems UK is a subsidiary, as a \u201cdreadful company\u201d that \u201chas played a critical role in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians\u201d but is \u201cwined and dined\u201d in the corridors of power.<\/p>\n
He said any violence carried out by defendants on 6 August was unplanned and it was fanciful to suggest that Palestine Action would \u201csuddenly abandon non-violent direct action\u201d, which he said had been the hallmark of its previous activities.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday, the prosecutor Deanna Heer KC, completing her closing submissions, rejected Corner\u2019s defence, heard during the trial, that he struck Evans with a sledgehammer after he had been sprayed with Pava spray in order to protect one or more co-defendants whom he had heard screaming.<\/p>\n
Heer said his actions were \u201cnothing to do with self-defence or defence of anyone else\u201d and that the level of force Corner used against Evans, who sustained a fractured spine, was \u201ccompletely unreasonable, completely disproportionate\u201d.<\/p>\n
When she began her closing submissions on Tuesday \u2013 the court did not sit on Wednesday \u2013 Heer told the court that jurors may have views about the conflict in the Middle East but said: \u201cFor the purposes of this trial, however, your views about those matters don\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge, Mr Justice Johnson, addressed the jurors in a similar fashion before closing arguments began.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nature of this case may excite strong emotions,\u201d he told the jury. \u201cBut you must each keep cool heads. Your decision should be a decision in which bias, emotion, sympathy, prejudice, political views and matters of that sort play no part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barristers representing the other defendants are expected to give their closing submissions on Friday before the judge sums up the case for the jury, which is likely to be sent out to reach its decision early next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Palestine Action activist accused of taking part in a break-in at an Israeli defence firm\u2019s UK site…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-683128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115861755330707012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}