On 13 April 2026, the BBC carried the story of the acquittal on charges of violent disorder of six Palestine Action activists who entered the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, Bristol on 6 August 2024 to compromise the ability of the plant to produce quadcopter drones used to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The facility was eventually closed by Elbit in September 2025.
Significantly, the state used counter terrorism powers under the 2000 Terrorism Act for the first time against all the 24 activists eventually detained, in order to justify their extended remand in prison beyond the six-month legal limit. Their detention was without any charges being brought under the legislation.
At Woolwich Crown Court in February of this year, the six activists detained by security guards and police inside the Filton site were found not guilty of aggravated burglary. However, the jury returned partial, or no verdicts, on charges of violent disorder, leaving it open to prosecutors to ask for a retrial, the subject of the BBC report. Once more, the six were found not guilty but are still subject to charges of criminal damage.
One might ask why the state broadcaster, which has Raffi Berg, someone who has spoken warmly of his relations with Mossad agents, as its Middle East editor and is otherwise known for its semantically partial reporting of the Gaza genocide, should give publicity to a legal victory of Palestinian activists. Why didn’t the BBC simply practice the ‘omerta’ of censorship by omission of most of the British media?
The verdict arrived at after the Crown Prosecution Service declined to bring evidence (the video evidence demolished their case), arguably serves the purpose of giving the superficial impression that the British sense of fair play is alive and well and the state is not going to gratuitously prosecute young activists who are not guilty of aggravated burglary, or disorder. Bearing in mind however that the trial is actually not over and all 24 activists were detained under terrorism legislation, this might be an overly benign interpretation of what’s going on.
Readers are otherwise referred to the excellent 13 April 2026 account by the Grayzone of the collusion by state authorities and judiciary to get the activists charged effectively as terrorists.Additionally, in the interim, there is the not insignificant fact that Palestinian Action was proscribed by the then home secretary Yvette Cooper in July 2025.
Cooper’s successor Shabana Mahmood appears to be pursuing the anti-Palestinian agenda on steroids. Following an appeal against the proscription of Palestine Action in February this year, the Appeal Court found the proscription to be “disproportionate”, but it was left in place pending an appeal and the Metropolitan Police stated that they would maintain a watching brief of activity rather than arresting activists.
This was then presumably countermanded by Mahmood, starting with the detention for the fifth time of the prominent and vocal Palestinian activists Dr Rameh Al-Adwan in March this year followed by resumption of arresting civic protestors by the police, most recently at the Defend our Juries protest in London on 11 April 2026 where 523 protestors were arrested.
Against this background, with the prosecution of the remaining 18 Filton activists pending, it does not seem improbable that the state is aiming to secure a ‘legal precedent’ conviction under terrorism legislation of young activists who at worse are simply guilty of property damage.
Such an outcome would indeed be a perversion of British justice.
