Ex-Oxford student guilty of hitting police officer with sledgehammer

Samuel Corner was found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm against Police Sergeant Kate Evans following a retrial at Woolwich Crown Court on Tuesday.

Four Palestine Action activists have been found guilty of raiding an Israel-based defence firm’s UK site and destroying equipment with sledgehammers and crowbars in a bid to shut the factory down.

Supporters outside Woolwich Crown Court, London, where Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Katema Rajwani and Zoe Rogers faced a retrial (Image: Yui Mok)

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Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani were in a prison van which crashed into shutters at the Elbit Systems factory in Bristol in the early hours of August 6, 2024.

Leona Kamio was found guilty of criminal damage (Image: Yui Mok)

The activists, all wearing red boilersuits, then set about destroying property inside the factory, before clashing with security guards and police who tried to stop the raid.

Head, 30, was driving the prison van which was used as a “battering ram” to break into the facility, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

The raid had been “meticulously organised” and was aimed at “causing as much damage as possible and obtain information about the company”, said prosecutor Deanna Heer KC.

The activists used sledgehammers and crowbars they had brought with them to destroy computers, drones, and other equipment, and used fire extinguishers to spray red paint across the walls and floor.

The group caused an estimated £1 million of damage during the raid, a court was told.

Head, Corner, Kamio and Rajwani were each found guilty of criminal damage after a jury deliberated for more than 14 hours.

Fatema Rajwani was one of four activists found guilty of criminal damage (Image: Yui Mok)

Two other activists, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, who had been charged with criminal damage, and who the court heard had been in the factory, were found not guilty.

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Corner was also found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm against Police Sergeant Kate Evans by a majority of 11 to one. He was cleared of grievous bodily harm with intent.

Mr Justice Johnson thanked jurors for their service.

“You performed that public service in exemplary fashion, turning up to court on time and putting up with delays,” he told the jury.

A protester outside Woolwich Crown Court, London (Image: Ellie Crabbe/PA Wire)

The court heard that when police arrived at the factory, 23-year-old Corner used his seven-pound sledgehammer to strike Sgt Evans twice on the back, leaving her with a fractured spine and fearing that she had been paralysed.

They claimed their purpose was to “dismantle drones and weaponry” which they believed would be used to kill people.

The defendants argued that the escalation in their clashes with security and police was not part of the plan, and insisted they had a justification for causing the damage to equipment.

Corner, a former linguistics and philosophy student at Oxford University, told his trial it “seemed reasonable to do something” after he heard one of his fellow activists screaming and believed they were being hurt by security guards.

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Sgt Evans was unable to return to work for three months in the aftermath as she recovered from the spinal injury, and she told the court she remains on restricted duties and still experiences back pain more than 20 months on.

After the convictions, Lord Walney, former independent government adviser on political violence and extremism, said: “It’s a huge relief to see justice finally being brought after this disgusting attack that left a police officer with a fractured spine.”

The four defendants are due to be sentenced on June 12.