Palestine Action Defendants Represent Themselves Due to ‘Court Decisions’

Palestine Action defendants chose to represent themselves rather than be represented by a lawyer “due to some decisions by the court”, as their trial nears its conclusion.

Charlotte Head, 30, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 and Sam Corner, 23, face charges of criminal damage in connection with a raid on a factory owned by Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems in Filton near Bristol, in August 2024.

Of those, only Corner, who is also accused of grievous bodily harm (GBH) for allegedly striking a police officer with a sledgehammer, chose to retain the services of a lawyer. The other five made their closing statements at Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday, choosing to represent themselves.

Head said: “Sadly, despite how unbelievably kind and smart and wise my barristers are, after some decisions made by the court, I no longer feel like they are permitted to represent me in a way that does us all justice. So I’ve had to represent myself.”

In her closing statement, Kamio, said: “This is not everything that I’d like to tell you, but I’m so scared of the consequences of saying something I’m not permitted to, that I hope this is enough.”

She criticised the “disingenuous and contradictory” prosecution case. “Why did you need to know that I may have been hungover from a party?” she asked the jury, saying that the jury had been presented with such information “to convince you that we are bad people”.

“The most disingenuous part of the case has been [allegations] of me intimidating security guards”, she said.

Kamio questioned the absence of some CCTV or body-worn security camera footage, as a witness referred to as “witness Alpha” could not remember a password.

While some CCTV footage has been presented in evidence, Kamio claimed that other footage which has not been made available to the court would have shown one of the security guards, Angelo Volante, being “incredibly violent”.

The footage’s absence could not be explained by a “low frame rate” she said.

“The security guards, like Elbit itself, have been shielded and sheltered by the state,” she said.

In her statement, Rajwani also questioned the partial CCTV footage presented by the prosecution, saying: “All of the might of the crown could not produce all of the CCTV and body-worn from inside that factory.”

Many of the defendants spoke through tears as they said they were proud of what they had done.

Head said she felt like she had “no choice” but to take direct action as she had been on marches and “cities and people were still being reduced to dust. My mental health plummeted watching what was happening and feeling helpless to stop it.”

Since October 2023, the Israeli military has killed a conservative estimate of 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed the vast majority of housing and infrastructure in the besieged enclave. Even since the October 2025 ceasefire, Israel has destroyed 2,500 buildings in Gaza.

Head added: “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.”

Head told the jury: “Politicians want to get rid of juries altogether”, adding, “They are frightened that you will listen to us, the defendants, when we talk to you and afraid of the power you hold as a jury. It’s entirely possible you may be one of the last juries to get to make decisions in a case like this before even that right is taken away from ordinary people.”

Rogers told the jury: “You are the best counterweight to power and tyranny in the legal system today”.

She said that throughout the trail the jury “might have noticed certain words have been blacklisted, that, until our speeches, the word ‘genocide’ hasn’t been said once”.

On Wednesday morning, police arrested protesters outside the court, who were holding signs saying: “Juries have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.”

The trial continues.