The MASSIVE importance of the Shipley 4 Trial -

The 4 took sledgehammers to Teledyne's factory in Shipley to stop weaponry being sent to Israel

I’m sorry I am late with posting this, but I post it despite this because it is SO important. The last few weeks were a rollercoaster of court cases in the UK and I link another case here. But for now, let’s talk about the miracle that happened in Bradford a few Fridays ago. I had the honour of attending the court and I was able to watch the amazing grace of the defendants, their strong and powerful closing speeches which brought us all to tears, the judge call them ‘exemplary’ and what can only be described as petulant and infantile behaviour of the Teledyne CEO - in my humble opinion of course. I feel it may also have been the opinion of some of the jurors too, because they weren’t buying his narrative and refused to do his bidding.

The Shipley 4 aka the Teledyne 4 are four individuals of different ethnic backgrounds, ages, and races, from different walks of life, who came together to occupy the roof of Teledyne’s factory in Shipley. The youngest was 20, the oldest 51. They smashed the roof with a sledgehammer on 2nd April this year. This was only a day after Israel targeted and bombed 3 British aid workers, murdering them in cold blood.

Teledyne is Britain’s biggest weaponry exporter to Israel. The four stayed on the roof for around 14 hours. Teledyne claimed they caused over £571,000 in damage and they had to stop production for a number of days.

So, the UK - being the custodian of human rights and totally against war crimes and genocide, of course - arrested these four activists and all four were charged with causing criminal damage and having articles with intent to destroy or damage property. That's right, these four found themselves in the dock, not Teledyne who, as their CEO testified under oath, had not been subject to one of the handful Lammy's lame weapons 'bans', and was thus continuing to supply weaponry to the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel, unimpeded.

The right to protest is enshrined in the Human Rights Act and is the cornerstone of democray, as it is one of the few mechanism to hold government to account and attempt to prevent tyranny. However, the UK has been massively suppressing our rights protest over the past few years, which has included the UK courts stripping traditional legal defences from protestors - such as their actions being necessary, proportional or even the defence of consent, (that is if the employees of the factory actually knew what their employer was doing, they would have consented to the action) - leaving them with none at all.

None of these legal defences have been available of late to protestors, both climate activists and anti-genocide activists, meaning that the only thing they can appeal to is the jury's sense of conscience.

The Shipley 4 case was hugely significant because it the first case where these defences were banned when an actual, live genocide was taking place and about an action by activists directly as a result of that genocide. In other words, these four smashed the roof of that factory because they wanted to stop the genocide in any way they could. Let that reality sit with you for just a moment, because the actions of the state in pressuring the judiciary to prevent these defences at this time is indeed momentous. The very fact the judiciary has not easily acquiesced is also indeed, portent.

Of course we now know from the heavily redacted Freedom of Information request made by Palestine Action, that the Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems had meetings with Attorney General to speak specifically about ”threats to manufacturing at Elbit systems from protest groups.” The documents states:

A Director from the Attorney General’s Office will be attending to represent the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS declined to participate in this meeting to preserve their operational independence.

The CPS have a Code with General Principles, 2.1 which says:

2.1 The independence of the prosecutor is central to the criminal justice system of a democratic society. Prosecutors are independent from persons or agencies that are not part of the prosecution decision-making process. CPS prosecutors are also independent from the police and other investigators. Prosecutors must be free to carry out their professional duties without political interference and must not be affected by improper or undue pressure or influence from any source.

Clearly, the CPS intended to pretend to follow these General Principles by sending the Attorney General in their place, yet simultaneously contradicted themselves and violated the Principles by sending the Attorney General to represent them!

The Canary article continues:

The documents also noted that:

although there have been successful prosecutions of Palestine Action members, there have been multiple instances of charges being dropped and defendants acquitted by juries and magistrates.

Previously, the Israeli embassy interfered in Palestine Action trials by lobbying the former Attorney General in May 2022. During this meeting, the Israeli government discussed the availability of legal defences for British activists, which coincided with the courts increasingly disallowing activists to argue that their actions were proportional to the crimes of the weapons factories they disrupted.

One section of the documents – which were heavily redacted – was the section on ‘past lobbying’.

Of course, it was totally coincidental that the meetings between the Israeli government with the then Attorney General about the availability of legal defences for British activists happened to occur just at the same time that those defences then became increasingly disallowed to those same activists by the courts. Do understand, the UK has given up its sovereignty to Israel but the vast propaganda has meant that the populace will do nothing about it, even as Israel directs its own courts.

The Guardian, perhaps the most thoroughly disgusting in its propaganda at present (do read the link, it will floor you), even had to admit:

Internal government documents show that Home Office ministers and staff tried to influence police and prosecutors to crack down on activists targeting the UK factories of an Israeli arms manufacturer, campaigners have claimed.

Briefing notes, obtained through freedom of information (FOI) requests by Palestine Action, show details of government meetings, predating the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s response in Gaza, intended to “reassure” Elbit Systems UK, an Israeli arms manufacturer, which is subject to a direct action campaign by the campaign group.

Need we honestly say more?

During the Shipley trial, little Ruby Hamill, the sweetest person you will ever meet and honestly, who caused such a cognitive jar by seeing her sitting in the dock (and with an ankle tag!), cried her way through her closing speech as she told of how she - like all of us - watched parents lift plastic bags of their children's’ body parts to the sky. Only the judge and prosecutor seemingly remained dry-eyed.

Sayed Shah, another defendant, and a father, asked the jury what they would do, if they saw a baby left in an overheated car on a hot day, windows up and doors locked. They would call the authorities first, of course. The police, the fire brigade, the social services. But what if none of them came? Would they walk away and leave the baby to die? Or would they break the window? He told them he had tried all democratic methods to prevent the babies in Gaza from being murdered, he went to protests, and he signed petitions and wrote to his MP, but no-one came to save these children. So he broke the window himself. He was poised and calm, rational and full of honour and grace.

All four defendants reminded the jury something that the judge did not - that they had the right to acquit based on their conscious.

Julian Gao explained to the jury how the right to acquit came about, and told them of the Bushel’s case, where a jury refused to pronounce two defendants guilty and were imprisoned by the trial judge and fined. It was finally accepted by the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Sir John Vaughan in his ruling in November 1670 that a jury could not be punished simply on account of the verdict it returned. In other words, the jury could give a verdict based on their convictions i.e. their conscience. This is commemorated with Bushel's placard outside the Old Bailey courts itself:

Daniel Jones, a man whose gentleness oozes of him and who wears on his face a perpetual smile of hope, spoke without notes. From his heart came all he he tried to prevent that April day in Shipley; more murder of children and innocent people. At they did stop some; they closed the factory for a       number of days. They halted production. They probably saved lives. He had to do it, and he asked the jury to vote with their consciences.

What none of the defendants did do however, was explain that voting with one’s conscience and acquitting, meant returning a not guilty verdict. And it seems that this is exactly what the jury needed to hear as in an interesting turn of events, about 30 minutes after they had retired to deliberate, the jury asked the judge how they could acquit based on their conscience. The judge told the jury that no one is able to direct the jury to convict but they must follow the legal directions which rule out any lawful excuse for the action taken. In other words, she was trying to confuse the jury away from their right to conscience by attempting to make out there wasn’t one under the term ‘lawful excuse’. She did not answer their question, but obfuscated.

And this is the horrifying pattern in Britain now, that juries are under attack by the government, both previous and current.

In an absolutely shameful and ridiculous case earlier this year, the then Solicitor General himself (deputy to the Attorney General) attempted to charge 68 year old Trudi Warner with contempt of court for holding up a sign outside the Old Bailey saying practically the same thing as the Bushel’s placard itself which was not far from where Trudi was standing. The Solicitor General tried to claim that Trudi was trying to interfere with the jury and influence them to give a certain verdict. Here is Trudi with her placard:

Obviously this was a direct attempt at intimidation and to prevent juries form understanding their rights in everyday, modern English. This attempt on our freedoms and rights is chilling, and to chose a 68 year old woman to pick on, abominable.

Thankfully the judge threw out the case. He ruled that Warner’s a actions did not amount to contempt of court, and that prosecuting her was disproportionate. The judge criticised the Solicitor General for mischaracterising the evidence, noting that Warner displayed her sign in an unobtrusive manner and she did not ‘confront’ potential jurors in order to interfere with the administration of justice, as the Solicitor General had claimed. He determined that her sign merely shared information without directing jurors on their duties. The court affirmed the importance of jury equity, a longstanding constitutional safeguard, and agreed with Warner’s legal team that she simply acted as a “human billboard” providing information.

If Trudi had been found guilty, she could have faced up to two years in prison. For holding a sign which is established in law and which is mounted upon the Old Bailey itself...

This is the state of British ‘justice’ today.

The jury in the Shipley case, thus seemingly unaware that conscience necessitated a not guilty plea, and confused because all the defendants had admitted to the crimes against them and the judge had provided absolutely no clarity, came back instead with no verdict. In other words, the jury refused to convict. Despite the pressure upon them, the obsufcation by the judge, the legal landscape in Britain which is actively oppressing those speaking up and taking action against genocide and stripping them of their legal defences seemingly at Israeli orders, the jury refused to convict four brave souls, who tried to stop at least one more person dying, to make sure at least one more child lived.

This was the first of such trials of direct action taken since the active genocide began and specifically targeted at ending that genocide. And the jury - 12 of the British public - refused to convict.

It is a miracle in the face of extreme adversity and suppression. It is the beginning of a pattern and hopefully one that will continue. But it requires us to spell it out and for every human in Briton an for them to hear it loud and clear so if they ever find themselves on a jury they know fully their rights. And their rights - YOUR rights - are these:

You have the absolute right to give a verdict based on your conscience, and if your conscience tells you that it would be wrong to convict people trying to stop genocide, then your verdict should be NOT GUILTY.

In this time of fascism, we must, all of us, do everything in our power to hold on to every single right we have, and to defend our juries from the tyranny of government.

(Just to add - a mistrial was called and CPS wants another - even though it clearly is not in the public interest - so the four are due back in a couple of years for that (yes, in 2026(!)). Let’s hope it gets dropped in the meantime or, if not, they get the same result).