Showing posts with label Woolwich Crown Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woolwich Crown Court. Show all posts

25 April 2026

The Met & Judge Jeremy Johnson are Trying to Rig the Filton 6 Retrial

The Jury Aren’t Being Allowed to Know the Context of the Defendant’s Actions, Their Right to Acquit on the Grounds of Conscience Nor that They will be Sentenced, if found Guilty of Criminal Damage, as Terrorists

Zarah Sultana Speech in House of Commons - How Judges & the State are Trying to Rig the Retrial of Filton 24 by Keeping Jurors in the Dark

On the 13th April I went to Woolwich Crown Court where the first 6 of the Filton 24 were facing a retrial. Last February all 6 defendants were acquitted of aggravated burglary, the most serious of the charges, carrying a life sentence.


Three of the six, were cleared by the jury of violent disorder and the prosecution last week offered no evidence on this charge against the remaining 3 defendants.

The only charges outstanding are those of criminal damage and in the case of Samuel Corner, Grievous Bodily Harm in respect of Police Sergeant Kate Evans.

Picket on the First Day of the Retrial

The mass media was full of allegations that Corner had deliberately attacked Evans with a sledgehammer. In fact the injury was barely noticeable and the charge of GBH is grossly excessive.

Woolwich Crown Court on Thursday - Cleared of Demonstrators

What the lying British media did not report was that Pava, a synthetic pepper spray had been directed at his face blinding him and then he heard a fellow actionist screaming out in pain. He swung his sledgehammer instinctively and having been blinded.  But you wouldn’t expect the feral British press to report the truth.


Judge Jeremy Johnson - Doing His Best to Secure Guilty Verdicts - A Ruling Class Patsy

This week we learn, and thanks to Zarah Sultana for using her privelege to reveal this in a speech in the House of Commons, that Judge Jeremy Johnson, who  spent his legal life defending the State and MI6, including ruling that  Assange should be deported, has ordered that the jury should not be informed that if the defendants are convicted of criminal damage they will be sentenced as ‘terrorists’.

It is part of the sick society that we live in that you are a ‘terrorist’ if you damage a death factory that is producing drones to murder children and you are a hero if you profit out of those deaths. ‘Justice’ Jeremy Johnson is a fit representative of such a society but it is Starmer, Yvette Cooper and the coconuts that go by the name of Lammy and Shabana Mahmood who are presiding over this injustice.

The jury acquittals in February are why Lammy is determined to abolish jury trials for those liable for less than 3 year sentences. The jury is the one independent element in the whole so-called Justice System. Judges are appointed by the Executive and are their creatures. This so-called Labour Government is determined to continue where the last Tory government left off.  

Supporting Genocide is illegal under British law. Sections 51/52 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 make the commission or support of genocide a criminal offence. Yet last year the High Court allowed the government to continue to supply arms for that genocide citing ‘reasons of state’. 

Our judges have no morality and bend the law to fit what they see as the needs of the State. Just as they do their best to adjust their rulings to the needs of their class and justify it through the use of weasel words.

Picket on the First Day of the Retrial



Demonstrators Had Been Moved to the Opposite Side of the Road & Forbidden to Use Loud Hailers 

I was happy to be asked to speak to the wonderful people who had gathered there and who had congregated to make sure that the jury and others passing by knew that this trial was a fit up.

Five of the Filton 6

Woolwich Crown Court is next to Belmarsh Prison and it is surrounded by high metal fences. There was a heavy police presence because preventing justice being done is more important than catching rapists and other criminals.

I also went up on Thursday 23 April and it was a totally different atmosphere. The Met had applied Section 14 of the Public Order Act and cleared the entrance to the court of all demonstrators. I later learnt that two members of Defend Our Juries, including Trudy Warner, had been arrested for holding signs saying that the jury deserved to know the whole truth, not what they are spoonfed by Judge Johnson.

Other signs emphasised that a jury has the right to acquit according to their convictions and conscience. This dates back to the 1670 case of Edward Bushell when the Judge instructed the jury to convict William Penn and William Mead of having spoken to a seditious assembly. Only the state church had that right.

The First Day of the Retrial When Demonstrations Were Not Prohibited

Despite being locked up without food, water, fire or chamber pot the jury refused to convict and were heavily fined (the equivalent of one year’s wages. Edward Bushell was gaoled for refusing to pay the fine and was eventually released after a writ of habeus corpus was granted by a reluctant Chief Justice Vaughan.

Today there is a marble plaque at the Old Bailey commemorating this decision and it reads:

Near this site WILLIAM PENN and WILLIAM MEAD were tried in 1670 for preaching to an unlawful assembly ... This tablet commemorates the courage and endurance of the jury,... who refused to give a verdict against them although locked up without food for two nights; and were fined for their final verdict of Not Guilty. The case of these jurymen was reviewed on a writ of habeas corpus and Chief Justice Vaughan delivered the opinion of the Court which established the right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions.”

The Metropolitan Police arrest of the two demonstrators was an unlawful arrest whose purpose was to prevent the jury from knowing of their rights. On Friday another 12 people were arrested for holding similar signs. The Metropolitan Police are in the business of establishing a Police State courtesy of the lying Starmer and Mahmood.


The signs asserted the rights of jurors (jury equity). One of the two is Trudi Warner. She was holding the exact same sign she held when unlawfully arrested in 2023, which became the focus of a year-long case to prove that it is not unlawful to hold this sign outside a court. The High Court determined that holding such a sign is not illegal, (Solicitor General vs Trudi Warner) but the Met decided to simply ignore this case.

Not only are jurors in the Filton 24 trial being denied the truth inside court, their right to make a decision based on their conscience, irrespective of a judge’s direction, is also being hidden from them.

It is impossible to know at this stage what the decision of the jury will be. I’m told that it has less Black and Muslim people on it.  No doubt the state has vetted the lists beforehand.

Picket on the First Day of the Retrial

Let us hope that the Filton 6 are acquitted of the remaining charge and Samuel Corner is also found not guilty. Despite the lies of the Daily Mail and the Zionist Jewish Chronicle the Filton 24 are heroes and people like Jeremy Johnson and the Shabana Mahmoods of this world are the villains. See:

https://www.declassifieduk.org/julian-assange-judge-previously-acted-for-mi6/

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/elbit-raid-trial-latest-palestine-10914146

Palestine Action’s ‘Filton 6’ cleared in ‘huge victory for moral courage in face of political pressure’
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12 January 2026

The First Trial of the Filton 24 Draws To A Close with Directions from the Judge that Genocide is no Excuse for Criminal Damage

 Do Not Forget the Hunger Strikers, 3 of Whom Are Dying as Lammy & Starmer Join the US's Narcissist-in-Chief in Destroying International Law 

Tony Greenstein Speech at Trial of Filton 24 at Woolwich Crown Court 9 January 2026 

Last Friday I went to the demonstration outside Woolwich Crown Court. Inside the trial of the first 6 of the Filton 24 was drawing to a close. The Jury should be going out today. There is a good report of the trial from Real Media here.

The Video The Government Doesn’t Want You To See

Not surprisingly there was a heavy police presence but despite the bitter cold there were about 100 protestors there. It was a lively demonstration and made a lot of noise with food and tea/coffee provided.

Geert Wilders – Dutch Fascist MP is Told He is Evil

See Real Media’s The Filton Trial – Week Six

There were a wide range of speakers, including a Christian Vicar who got us all singing along and I spoke on behalf of Jewish Network for Palestine.

We are living in an age of imperialism and authoritarianism. War abroad is accompanied by repression at home and the trial of the Filton 24 is a good example of this. Their only crime is doing their best to stop the Genocide but according to the judge Mr Injustice Johnson, trying to prevent Genocide is no excuse for criminal damage. British Judges are probably the most amoral part of British society after Keir Starmer and this government.

There are going to be 3 more trials and we face the prospect of the hunger strikers dying whilst war criminals Starmer and Lammy look on by, demonstrating their callous indifference to the possible death of 3 young people as they demonstrate their loyalty to Zionism.

This ‘Labour’ Government has no shame at all. All the hunger strikers are unconvicted and but for false allegations of a terrorism connection would already have been released on bail. ‘Terrorism’ is the go to allegation as ‘terrorism’ becomes the catch-all smear made against direct action protesters.

If anything is a good example of terrorism it is piracy on the high seas and the boarding of ships by the United States yet that was what happened this week with the complicity of the British navy thanks to Britain’s most unpopular Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.

Below is an Open Letter from the Lemkin Institute to Keir Starmer calling for him to intervene to prevent the deaths of the hunger strikers. The Institute is named after Raphael Lemkin, (1900–1959) who was a Polish-Jewish lawyer and linguist who coined the term "genocide" in 1944 and campaigned tirelessly to make it an international crime.

Lemkin is known as the "father" of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention and personally lobbied the United Nations to adopt the convention.

Let us keep the pressure up on the war criminals who rule us and the British state.

ESCALATE for the prisoners, ESCALATE for Palestine

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22 November 2025

Free the Filton 24– I Attended the First Day of This Show Trial at Woolwich Crown Court and this is what I saw

 6 Prisoners are on Hunger Strike Because of Systematic Abuse” by Prison Warders on Instructions from the Police and Government Prosecutors

Demonstration in support of the Filton 24 17 November 2025

Last Monday 17 November I attended a demonstration outside the first day of a show trial at Woolwich Crown Court. I was totally surprised. Instead of a normal court where you go in, have your bag searched and then sit down in a public gallery, with  maybe a coffee in a canteen, I couldn’t go anywhere near the court. Massive steel railings, locked gates and a heavy police presence kept us well away.

One of the most famous legal dictums in British jurisprudence is that “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”. This dictum was laid down by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Hewart, in the case of Rex v. Sussex Justices, [1924] 1 KB 256. Justice is neither being done or being seen to be done at what is an extension of the Belmarsh prison complex. This is a prison court.

Woolwich Crown Court, which during Julian Assange’s appearances doubled as Westminster magistrates court, was off limits to the public. This is not accidental. It is designed to impress upon members of the jury that these precautions need to be taken because they are trying dangerous prisoners.

Resistance is justified when genocide is about

None of the Filton 24, of whom 6 are appearing in the first trial, is even charged with a terrorist offence. The first case focuses on the six defendants who were caught on the premises of Elbit Systems on August 6, 2024. They are: Zoe Rogers, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Jordan Devlin, Samuel Corner, Charlotte “Lottie” Head and “Ellie”.

They are charged with criminal damage to the Filton Elbit factory in Bristol. Their crime? Allegedly destroying the quadcopters that have been used to target the survivors of missile attacks by Israel. In other words the ‘crime’ of the defendants is to oppose Israel’s genocide which is deemed in the interests of the British state.

Starmer on genocide in Croatia and Bosnia - was there ever such a lying hypocrite?

The defendants have been held on remand for over a year despite the fact that no prisoner is supposed to spend more than 6 months on remand. This outrage is a consequence of having Starmer and his police state buddies in government and their continuation of the previous government’s attack on the right to protest and its support for Israel’s genocide.

This is what democracy has come to in Britain in the 21st century. If there was any justice in the court system then it would be Starmer himself, Lammy, Lisa Nandy and all the other genocidaires in this ‘Labour’ government who were on trial.

Every single human rights group in the world – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even Israel’s B’tselem have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. On 31 August 2025, the Association of Genocide Scholars, who know a thing or two about genocide, passed a Resolution on the Situation in Gaza describing it as genocide by 86%. The UN’s own Commission of Inquiry has termed Israel’s actions genocide as has UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

But Starmer, who called the killing of 1,200 people in Vukovar in Croatia and the 8,000 Muslims who were massacred by Serb forces in Srebenica, refuses to call the murder of at least 100,000 and possibly far more in Gaza genocide.

Instead the people who campaign against genocide and who have taken action to prevent genocide are the criminals. This is the ’justice’ of British courts. As an article Palestine solidarity Behind Bars says that:

The Filton 24 prosecution has been marked by political interference, the aggressive use of counter-terror powers and repeated breaches of basic rights. It is the first time the British state has attempted to treat allegations of property damage as ‘terrorism’, setting a precedent later used to justify the proscription of Palestine Action. The investigation involved armed dawn raids, the damage to family homes, children handcuffed in their underwear in freezing conditions, and properties stripped of all electronic devices.

Since their arrest, the defendants have been held under unusually harsh conditions. All 24 were labelled ‘high-risk’ on arrival at HMP Bronzefield and HMP Peterborough, placed under surveillance regimes normally reserved for violent offenders, and denied bail at every stage — despite the non-violent nature of the allegations. Many have now spent more than a year on remand, far exceeding typical pre-trial detention periods.

The case raises profound questions about the criminalisation of protest, the expansion of national-security powers and the use of counter-terror frameworks against political dissent — particularly movements organising in solidarity with Palestine. Herbich is due to stand trial in June 2026.

MI5 Asset Paul Mason denies anyone is being held without trial

What happened in Filton?

On August 6, 2024, Palestine Action’s members broke into the premises of Elbit Systems in Filton, Bristol and allegedly destroyed the quadcopter drones used by the IDF to target Palestinians.

The action was estimated to have caused more than £1m in damage. Six activists were arrested at the scene all of whom are now on trial.

Four others were arrested in connection with the Filton action in nationwide raids days after. Then, in November 2024, more raids saw the number of those arrested and held climb to 18. Later, in June 2025, a final raid led to six more people being arrested. Nearly all the activists have been denied bail despite several applications. Our judges always tremble at the knees and abandon their thinking parts whenever the words ‘terrorism’ or ‘security’ is mentioned.

Hunger Strike

Six members began a hunger strike this month in protest against “systematic abuse” in the prisons, including wardens referring to them as “terrorists”, confiscating their clothing – including their Palestinian kefiyehs – and restricting their visits and letters. They include Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Kamran Ahmed, Teuta “T” Hoxha and Qesser Zurah.

The group has vowed to refuse food until Elbit is shut down and prison authorities stop the alleged abuse.

This is the second hunger strike Hoxha has observed within the last three months.

In August, she refused food for three weeks over worsening treatment by prison staff in the aftermath of the government's move to ban the group under terrorism legislation in July.

The campaign group Prisoners for Palestine (PFP) announced the launch of the rolling hunger strike after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood failed to respond to a letter outlining their demands, including immediate bail and an end to prison interference with their personal communications, as well as the de-proscription of Palestine Action.

More are expected to participate in the coming weeks.

'I will persevere'

The prisoners have received widespread support from pro-Palestine activists.

Former Lebanese political prisoner Georges Abdallah - freed in July after 41 years in a French jail - sent a message to the hunger strikers, expressing his ‘full solidarity with the Comrades of ‘Prisoners for Palestine’ in the face of “repression”.

From house arrest, US activist Jakhi McCray, who is accused of torching police vehicles, said he will also begin a hunger strike in solidarity and to draw attention to their case.

In his letter, McCray wrote:

These comrades have been physically isolated even within their prisons, banned from communicating with family and friends, assaulted, denied a fair trial, and harassed over their religion.

Zurah, Gibb and Muraisi reported that they have been repeatedly denied medical attention and refused requests for electrolytes. One of the prisoners has now gone a week without food.

PFP said the government has still not issued a response to their letter nor commented on the strikers.

"I am astounded by T's resilience in joining her comrades in this hunger strike, having just completed one two months ago,"

PFP's Audrey Corno said.

"In our last visit, she told me: 'Don't worry about me. I've read about Guantanamo, and I am embarrassed - I will do this hunger strike in comparative comfort. Whatever happens to me cannot compare to the scenes in Palestine. Therefore I will persevere.'"

"This is the strength the British state is up against," Corno added.

Palestine Solidarity Behind Bars

Aleksandra Herbich is one of twenty-four defendants in the Filton 24 case — a group of activists, most linked to Palestine Action, arrested after a direct-action protest at the Elbit Systems weapons factory in Filton, near Bristol, in August 2024. Here is her letter to her parents:

Dear Mum and Dad,

What a year it has been.

One year of trauma at the hands of the state. One year of imprisonment without trial, with no hope of bail. One year of being classified as the highest security threat by HMPPS; punished, isolated and surveilled without cause.

One year of seeing the suffering of women and trans men in broken prisons up close. One year of hearing their stories: criminalised for being poor, mentally unwell, or both.

One year of experiencing an impenetrable web of bureaucracy used as a weapon against the voiceless. One year of abuse of state power backed by judicial tyranny, funded by a seemingly endless stream of taxpayer money.

One year of watching the government’s unrighteous smear campaign on TV in my cell, in order to justify classifying protest as terrorism. One year of the continuing destruction of civil liberties in the name of the military-industrial complex.

One year without freedom or dignity. But never without hope — because it’s also been one more year of all races, genders, ages, religions, and classes unified towards a free Palestine.

One more year of the people continuing to stand up and say ‘No! Not in our name!’

One more year of civil disobedience on a scale never seen before around the world in defence of freedom for all.

One more year of government hypocrisy exposed for all to see. One more year of struggle against the oppression of the masses in the service of the one percent. One more year of ‘There’s no justice — there’s just us!’

One more year of friends, family and the people reminding me I’m not alone and how lucky I am to be in their presence. One more year of community building and solidarity in the face of the destructive forces of individualism. One more year of having faith that things get worse just before they get infinitely better with a little perseverance.

So here’s one gone, and seven months to come, with nothing to do except prepare for my trial. And to that I say: bring it on!

Love,

your daughter, Aleks

Aleks Herbich is a musician who has been in custody since 19 November 2024, when she was arrested by police using ‘anti-terrorism’ laws, becoming one of the Filton 18 (now 24).

Exclusive: Absconded activist refuses to be “prisoner of war”

Palestine Action trial begins in London – what we know

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