LONDON: A British pro-Palestinian activist on trial over a raid targeting Israeli defense firm Elbit said on Thursday she and her co-defendants had wanted to “cause as much property damage as we could” but said she was opposed to violence.
Charlotte Head, 29, and five others are on trial at Woolwich Crown Court over what prosecutors have described as a meticulously planned assault by Palestine Action on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, last August.
All six are charged with aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage, with one of Head’s co-defendants also charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent for allegedly hitting a police officer with a sledgehammer.
They all deny the charges. Head told jurors she and her co-defendants had decided to take action because “all else had failed.”
Head admitted she drove a repurposed former prison van carrying fellow activists through fences outside the factory and then into a loading bay in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
