The April trial of the Filton 6 has had many pauses for legal arguments and decisions, which under standard reporting restrictions we are prevented from publishing, although some of the issues have leaked out in foreign independent press and even in the House of Commons.
Today the trial reached the stage of closing defence speeches, normally delivered by legal representatives, but the jury heard this morning that the five defendants facing charges of Criminal Damage have suddenly decided to dispense with the services of their lawyers and would now represent themselves. Sam Corner, who faces an additional charge of Grievous Bodily Harm With Intent is in a different position, and his legal representative Tom Wainwright will remain as the only defence lawyer in court.
Despite how it may (or may not) appear, I am not a confident person. Like most people, I find it difficult and uncomfortable to talk about the things those who know me say are my good qualities. In that regard, self-representing is extremely difficult for me so I will try to stick to the facts. Miss Heer [Deanna Heer KC, Crown prosecutor] said to you in her closing speech that, because we entered not guilty pleas, none of us were willing to “take responsibility for our actions”, but that’s not true. As she herself pointed out, I have said on multiple occasions that I dismantled weapons in the Elbit factory and that I set out to do so. I didn’t enter a not guilty plea to try and deceive a jury or attempt to “get away with” anything. I did so because I believed I was legally justified in doing what I did at the Elbit site and because, in my opinion, the narrow approach to the definition of ‘criminal damage’ misses one key thing: context. So that’s what I’m going to attempt to summarise for you now.
So I went on the local marches in Cardiff – and the bombs kept falling. I went on the national demos in London – and cities and people were still being reduced to dust. My mental health plummeted watching what was happening and feeling helpless to stop it. As much as it felt necessary to do more, it was also somewhat self-serving because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t feel like I’d done everything I could. So I moved back to London, got a job at a domestic abuse charity and tried to work out what other avenues were possible to try to stop what was happening in Gaza. I wrote to my MP, someone I knew to be sympathetic to the cause, and received only an automated response.
Then I discovered the pro-Palestine camp in Hackney, a camp set up on ground protected in the by-laws specifically for protesting. A camp that was trying to get the council to divest its pension funds from weapons manufacturers like Elbit and other complicit companies. I spent 2 months sleeping on the street at the camp by night and going to my job in the day. We stood on the pavement and encouraged people to sign our petition. We ran workshops to help inform the local community about how their council taxes were funding the horrors we were all seeing on our screens. We worked and worked to put together a proposal to help show the pension committee how feasible divestment was. And on the day of the deputation, after so much effort, the committee chairman pulled out a pre-printed statement that effectively told us that everything we’d done was pointless and that they weren’t going to listen to ordinary people like us. That we could never line the politicians’ pockets like these corporations could so our opinions were irrelevant.
Now, my motivations for joining Palestine Action are also not considered relevant evidence in this case but I can tell you that I joined during my time at the Hackney camp. I can tell you I signed up to a training day after months of campaigning and pleading and asking those in power to stop abetting Israel and housing companies like Elbit. And I can tell you that it felt like I had no other choice. No other options available because we’d tried them all. I can tell you that I signed up to do an action with Palestine Action, a group that has been trying to end British complicity in war crimes since 2020. That 4 Elbit sites have been permanently shut down by its direct actions, 4 sites connected to Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer that produces 85% of the Israeli military’s drones and land-based equipment.
When I was on the stand, I was asked why direct action is necessary and I told you that it’s because the government doesn’t listen when people like you and me “ask nicely”. They have too much invested, both politically and financially, to act on a moral basis. We tried “asking nicely” and playing by their rules and they flat out ignored us. I don’t believe that wanting to stop human suffering, to stop tens of thousands of innocent people being killed is a fringe belief. I believe it is a commonly held view that underpins what it means to live in a just and humane society. I don’t agree that just because something is deemed incorrect by those in power at this point in history means that it is the wrong thing to do. Slavery used to be legal. The apartheid in South Africa was deemed legal. Myriad evils have been legal at one point or another – but that does not make them justified.
During her closing speech, Miss Heer highlighted the sheer amount of character evidence you’ve heard in our defence cases and you might wonder, considering this, why we’ve been relatively quiet on our motivations for joining Palestine Action or signing up to the action at Filton factory? You might also wonder where, in all of this, is Elbit Systems? Where are the three security guards, who intimidated, threatened and assaulted us? Where is the member of Elbit security who initially decided what footage was relevant? Where is Witness Alpha? Why has no witness from Elbit been called to explain the impact of the action on the functioning of damaged drones and other weapons? Why is there no precise inventory of what was damaged or destroyed? You might feel it’s because they don’t want to highlight the weapons they’re making on British soil or that the narrative spun by the prosecution is incorrect. You might consider the contrast between Elbit Systems on one hand and me and my co-defendants on the other and wonder which one has been more open, honest and human with you.