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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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In 2024 several protestors in Bristol broke into an Elbit Systems defense factory with sledgehammers attempting to smash up the place. Police arrived and in the fracas one officer was hit in the back and seriously injured. They were acquitted on charges of aggravated burglary and partial or no verdicts were reached on criminal damage, violent disorder, and grievous bodily harm with intent.

Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, were all acquitted of aggravated burglary by the jury after more than 36 hours of deliberation. Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder, while the jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio. The jury could also not reach verdicts on an additional charge of criminal damage. Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to agree a verdict on that count.

The defense argued that the action did not rise to the level of GBH with intent, which is defined as

“Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person with intent to do some grievous bodily harm to any person, or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person.”

For a Section 18 GBH charge to be proven, it must be shown that the offender physically caused the serious injuries and, at the same time as the assault took place, that this is what they intended to cause. It is the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime. For a case to be considered under Section 18, identifying reckless behaviour in the actions of the offender will not be sufficient enough to find an accused individual guilty. The act must be malicious in nature and deliberate, indicating malice aforethought often with a degree of premeditation.

Instead, Mr. Corner, an autistic man, was pepper sprayed, confused, and attempting to defend his comrade being restrained and arrested, so malicious intent was not present.

It should also be noted that protestors put up jury nullification signs around the trial.

Juries don't have to give reasons, but this is almost certainly a straightforward jury nullification case. Enough left-wing Britons* believe that arms sales to countries with bad human rights records are per se illegitimate and therefore that vandalising an arms factory is legitimate to hang a jury - particularly in a place like Bristol. The other famous recent jury nullifications in vandalism cases are are the 2020 case where rioters in Bristol dumped a statue of a slave trader into the sea, and the 2021 case where climate protestors graffitied Shell UK HQ. There were also some older cases involving vandalism of British Aerospace factories making warplanes.

* Yes, Britons. This particular facet of left-wing culture is whiter than the census.

I can see the argument for hanging a jury on the arms factory vandalism/trespassing, but being unable to reach a conclusion on the assault of a police officer that's literally on camera seems to indicate that something's going awry with the process itself.

Some jurors believe in the process. Others have a side. And this correlates with which side they're on.

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