YESTERDAY, Wednesday 18th February, the Filton 24 defendants who have not yet gone to trial, were formally acquitted of aggravated burglary.
The CPS confirmed they were not able to offer any evidence to support this charge at a hearing at Woolwich Crown Court today.
As it was too late to drop the charge, the defendants were given not guilty verdicts by the court on the charge of aggravated burglary.
The remaining charges against the rest of the 24 defendants in the case include criminal damage and the public order offence of violent disorder.
There were scenes of huge celebration as Ian Sanders, Madeleine Norman, William Plastow, Yulia Brigadirova and Aleksandra Herbich were all granted bail yesterday.
This ‘significant victory’ comes after the first six on trial from the Filton 24 were all acquitted of aggravated burglary, the most serious charge by far levelled against the defendants, which carried a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Three of the defendants including Zoe Rogers, Fatema Zainab Rajwani and Jordan Devlin were also acquitted of violent disorder.
On the remaining counts, the jury reached no verdicts, meaning the six were not convicted of any offence.
The not guilty verdicts of aggravated burglary and failure to convict of violent disorder means the jury did not accept the prosecution case that the defendants entered the Elbit weapons factory with the intention of using the items they carried as weapons, or threatened/used unlawful violence against Elbit’s security guards.
Rather, it appears the jury agreed with the defence argument, that the defendants’ sole intention was to use the items, including sledgehammers, as tools to disarm Israeli weapons to ‘prevent violence’.
The 18 who were not on the first trial were initially accused of aggravated burglary on a joint enterprise basis with the first six, which the prosecution dubbed as the ‘red team’. With the acquittals of the red team, the prosecution case against the rest of the 18 on this charge has ‘fallen apart’.
After the ‘victory’ achieved by the first six on trial, five of the defendants were granted bail pending a re-trial. The prosecution confirmed today that there will be a retrial on the charges of which no verdicts were reached.
This means Samuel Corner, Charlotte Head, Ellie (Leona) Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin will be retried on the charge of criminal damage.
Samuel Corner, Charlotte Head and Ellie Kamio will be retried on the charge of violent disorder.
Samuel Corner will also be retried on the charge of GBH with intent against a police officer. These charges may be changed to lower offences.
A spokesman for the Filton24 Defence Committee said: ‘Having all of the Filton24 acquitted of aggravated burglary charges is a significant victory …
‘With the High Court ruling that the ban was unlawful, and the jury in the first trial refusing to convict the Filton defendants of any offence, it is clear that the state’s overreach has truly backfired.
‘The message is now clear: the repression must end and so should the ongoing government involvement in the ongoing Gaza genocide.’ Lisa, stepmum to Finn Collins, told News Line: ‘Finn and his co-defendants are part of Trial 4, so they have been in Prison since July 2025, which is seven months and well over the custody time limit.
‘The other Filton activists were in prison for 18 months, and even Sam who was in Trial 1 and not even convicted on any charge, is still in prison. The jury recently refused to convict on any counts. They acquitted all six on the most serious charge of aggravated burglary. There have been concerns all along about whether this can be a fair trial.
‘Evidence was revealed in court that Elbit were passed the contact details of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) which is an astonishing turn of affairs.
‘There is evidence of direct communication with the Israeli and British governments about this case.
‘It feels like the Filton activists are taking on, not just the British state, but the Israeli state as well’.
Asim Qureshi from CAGE said: ‘We don’t think it is in the public interest for these cases to go ahead at all. Drop them. The government and the police are rattled because the general British public understands that there is a genocide taking place. This genocide is a great psychic violence to us all and one that really needs to be stopped. That is why juries are consistently acquitting those who have been involved in direct action.
Filton activist Zahra’s father Suhaib Farooque said: ‘Yes our daughter is suffering, but we try to focus on the bigger picture, on what she is fighting for.
‘What is happening to the Palestinians, it’s like, the whole world is suffering from a cancer. The Zionists have penetrated all the institutions all over the world, that is what makes it difficult for any of these institutions to survive. And sometimes your children lead the way.’
Ann Farooque said: ‘We have had a great victory. The state has tried everything to crush them, give them a bad name, but it has only given the youth more credit, showed their courage like the fight of David and Goliath.’
Tom Herbich father of Aleksandra, said: ‘We take it day by day. The charge of aggravated burglary was a completely false claim, with no evidence. But bringing it, meant that our children could not get bail. The biggest issue is that they are being treated like terrorists in prison, they are not terrorist, and they have never been charged as terrorists, but they are still isolated.’