'We didn’t want to cause any harm' Activist denies intending to use violence

PALESTINE Action activists who allegedly used sledgehammers as weapons on security guards and police officers during a break-in at an Israel-based defence firm's UK site “didn’t want any harm to happen’, one of the accused said.

- Ted HENNESSEY

Charlotte Head, 29, is accused of being involved in a “meticulously organised” demonstration at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol in the early hours of August 6 last year, along with Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin.

Head, giving evidence at a trial at Woolwich Crown Court yesterday, said that before the break-in, the six of them agreed that they did not want to use violence.

She added: “We didn’t want any harm to happen. Those red lines were in place”

Asked by her barrister Rajiv Menon KC if there was anything else they talked about beforehand, Head said the idea was for them to appear to be too much “hassle” for security guards, so that they would not intervene, rather than “terrify” them.

The defendant said: “We expected to have hours in that building, we packed sandwiches, we didn’t think that they would come in.”

Prosecutors say the six, wearing red jumpsuits, attempted to “cause as much damage as possible and obtain information about the company”