Six British anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activists will face a retrial on a number of charges relating to a 2024 raid on Israeli defense firm Elbit’s UK factory, after they were acquitted of the charge of aggravated burglary earlier this month.
The retrial will concern criminal charges on which the jury failed to reach verdicts, according to UK media reports. It is due to take place in February 2027.
The initial verdict on the raid, in which a police officer’s spine was allegedly fractured in a filmed sledgehammer attack by an activist, drew criticism from police, lawmakers and Jewish communal groups. Jewish organizations spoke out again the following week, when the UK’s High Court struck down a government ban on Palestine Action as a terror group.
Now, all six defendants — Samuel Corner, 23, Charlotte Head, 29, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 — will stand trial for criminal damage charges. In addition, Head, Corner, and Kamio are charged with violent disorder, a charge on which the other three were acquitted.
Prosecutor Deanna Heer said aggravated burglary charges against 18 other defendants are being dropped.
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Corner faces the charge of causing grievous bodily harm in connection with the sledgehammer attack. Footage of the incident shows him striking a policewoman with a sledgehammer and reportedly fracturing her lumbar spine.
The attack on the female officer left her initially unable to drive, dress or shower without assistance, she has said, adding that she took medication to handle the “intense pain.” She could not work for three months, the BBC reported, and was later put on restricted duties.
Prosecutors said the raid caused about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
Bodycam footage from August 6, 2024, shows an officer aiming a taser gun at an intruder at Elbit UK’s site in Bristol, England, after the intruder struck a police officer with a sledgehammer. (Screen capture: Channel 4)
The charges came after Palestine Action carried out a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some eight months later, in June 2025, Palestine Action activists broke into a Royal Air Force base and vandalized two planes, causing an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage. The following month, Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, making it a crime to be a member.
Last week, Britain’s High Court struck down that decision, though it kept the ban in place pending another hearing while the government prepares an appeal.
The trial on the Elbit attack began in November. Prosecutors told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to ram their way into the factory and then smash equipment.
The six defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, and disavowed violence against people, despite the police bodycam footage of the sledgehammer attack.
Corner had denied causing grievous bodily harm with the intent to hit a female police sergeant. He testified that he only swung the sledgehammer at the police officer to protect one of his friends.
They were all acquitted of aggravated burglary after more than 36 hours of deliberation, with the jury unable to reach verdicts on the other charges. The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Pro-Palestinian protesters sit on the floor with a sign reading ‘Elbit corrupts justice’, referring to the Israeli defense group Elbit, after spraying red paint over the exterior of the Ministry of Justice building in central London on December 12, 2025. (HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)
That decision sparked a backlash from British lawmakers and Jewish groups, who charged that the verdict set a dangerous precedent.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp wrote to Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson urging him to seek a retrial, warning the verdict “risks giving the green light to mob violence in pursuit of a political objective.”
Jewish organizations also condemned the outcome. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was “concerned by the troubling verdicts acquitting members of Palestine Action,” warning against “perverse justifications being used as a shield for criminality.”
In an op-ed published in The Telegraph, former Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard charged that the acquittals “are telling British Jews they have no future here,” and said the decision may be “the single most significant case in the history of Anglo-Jewry since 1945.”
On February 7, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it would seek a retrial.
“The allegations in this case are extremely serious – including the alleged breaking of a police officer’s back with a sledgehammer – and it is only right that all steps are taken to ensure that justice is pursued fully and in accordance with the law,” the UK Campaign Against Antisemitism group said in a statement following that announcement.
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