Pro-Palestine protesters guilty of criminal damage

WOMEN SPRAYED RED PAINT AND DUMPED RUBBLE AT FACTORY

- By ROB KENNEDY Court reporter

THREE women have been found guilty of criminal damage after staging an eight-hour pro-Palestine protest at a Newcastle factory.

Wearing red boiler suits, two of the women climbed onto the roof of Pearson Engineering, on Scotswood Road, while red paint was sprayed and spilt, rubble was dumped, razor wire was cut and slingshots were used to fire stones to cause damage to signs.

Newcastle Crown Court heard they targeted the factory because it is owned by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, an Israeli state-owned weapons technology company.

They said they hoped to affect the production of weapons being used to inflict what they called "genocide" in Gaza, although a company representative told the court none of it's creations had been supplied to Israel.

Hollie Mildenhall, 25, of Spencer Street, Heaton, Newcastle; Summer Oxlade, 29, of Railway Terrace, Houghton-le-Spring; and Georgia Coote, 28, of Cosgrove Court, Benton, North Tyneside, did not deny carrying out the acts of damage but claimed their actions were lawful given the links they alleged exist between the company and what was happening to Palestinians.

Now jurors have found them all guilty of damaging property.