A Palestine Action activist who fractured a police officer’s spine with a sledgehammer during a raid on an Israeli defence firm’s UK factory has been sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison, as a judge ruled the group’s actions had a “terrorist connection” and were designed to intimidate the public.
Samuel Corner, 23, was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court alongside three co-defendants — Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani — who received sentences of five years, five years, and four years and eight months respectively. All four had been convicted of criminal damage last month over the raid on Elbit Systems’ factory near Bristol on 6 August 2024, with Corner additionally found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Mr Justice Johnson ruled that the £1.2 million worth of damage caused during the raid had been carried out with a “terrorist connection,” telling the defendants they were “well aware of the underlying sentiment and aims and strategies of Palestine Action.” He said: “Each defendant agreed to take part in high level actions, and did so with the shared aim of shutting down Elbit and ending what they regarded as British complicity in Israeli war crimes. I’m satisfied the action was designed to influence the UK Government and also to intimidate a section of the public, and was for the purpose of advancing an ideological or political cause.”
According to the Irish News, the group used an old prison van as a “battering ram” to smash through the factory’s shutters in the early hours of the morning, before setting about destroying equipment with sledgehammers and crowbars while wearing red boilersuits. Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the trial the operation had been “meticulously organised,” with the group divided into colour-coded teams — one tasked with overwhelming security guards through threats and intimidation, the other with breaking into the buildings to cause maximum damage and seize information about the company’s operations.
LBC reported that the most serious violence occurred when police arrived at the scene. Sergeant Kate Evans was struck twice across the back with a seven-pound sledgehammer by Corner while she lay on the ground, fracturing her spine. She was unable to return to work for three months and told the court she remains on restricted duties and continues to experience back pain more than 20 months later. The Avon and Somerset Police Federation had previously described the attack on Evans as “despicable… violent and deliberate thuggery that has had devastating consequences for a courageous and dedicated police officer.”
Corner, a former linguistics and philosophy student at Oxford University, told the trial it had “seemed reasonable to do something” after hearing a fellow activist screaming and believing they were being hurt by security guards. The defendants had argued their purpose was to “dismantle drones and weaponry” they believed would be used to kill people, and maintained the escalation in violence had not been part of their plan.
Two further defendants, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, were acquitted of all charges. All six activists had previously been cleared of aggravated burglary at an earlier trial in which the jury could not reach verdicts on the criminal damage charges, leading to Friday’s retrial and conviction.
The sentencing drew a significant police presence after around 500 pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside Woolwich Crown Court. GB News reported that 72 people were subsequently arrested on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July last year — a designation that makes any expression of support for the group a criminal offence. Scotland Yard confirmed police vans were deployed to remove demonstrators from the scene after the first arrest was made shortly after 1.20pm.
