The 2024 Filton Elbit Systems break-in was a high-profile direct action carried out by members of the pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action on 6 August 2024 at the Elbit Systems UK facility at the Aztec West Business Park in Filton, near Bristol, England. The site was a research, development and manufacturing hub for Elbit, an Israeli weapons company.
The activists drove a repurposed prison van into the compound, breached security fences, entered the facility and caused damage to property and equipment; the action also involved confrontations with security personnel and police.
The break-in sparked national debate about protest tactics, the use of anti-terror laws, and the role of arms manufacturing in British domestic and foreign policy. The legal process was marked by several notable features including an attempt to convict a defence barrister of contempt of court, the absence of identified witnesses from Elbit, the defendants being forbidden from mentioning the Gaza Genocide, and the application of a "terrorism connection" to the charges which was kept secret from the jury and the public.
Six activists were arrested and later charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage, and violent disorder. One defendant was additionally charged with GBH, for striking a police officer with a sledgehammer, which the prosecution alleged was intentional. Two trials followed, during which the accused spent lengthy periods on remand. The first trial ended with all defendants found not guilty of aggravated burglary and the violent disorder charges were dropped. However a retrial led to four convictions for criminal damage, an acquittal on the initial GBH with intent charge and conviction on majority verdict for a lesser charge of GBH without intent.
The charges were secretly subject to a "terrorism enhancement" applied by the judge in a preliminary ruling of March 2025, but not disclosed to the jury and restricted from being reported by the UK media until May 2026, meaning the jury had returned convictions without knowing that the defendants faced significantly more severe sentencing and registration as "terrorists", which will severely restrict their future lives after release.
According to the presiding judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, this was applied based on the "appearance" of a terrorism connection, as the property damage was caused with the intent "to influence the Israeli government by restricting their access to weapons," and their actions were "for the purpose of advancing a political or ideological cause".
On 12 June 2026, the four activists were sentenced as terrorists, with their sentences ranging from 4 to 8 years. This ruling is the first time in British legal history that protestors convicted of property damage have faced a terrorism designation upon sentencing.
Background
Palestine Action is an activist network that targets firms associated with the Israeli military, especially companies it says supply weapons used against Palestinians. Prior to August 2024, the group had undertaken smaller-scale protests, blockades, and occupations at Elbit-linked sites. Their strategy emphasises direct action, including sabotage, to disrupt what they view as a "war-machine infrastructure."
Elbit's Filton facility, which is often referred to in reporting as the Horizon site, was opened in July 2023. Elbit had held a separate lease in the Aztec West business park since 2019 for other UK operations, but the specific Horizon/H2 Filton facility that Palestine Action targeted was inaugurated in July 2023.
The facility had been under repeated protest pressure. According to activist supporters, the site manufactured quadcopter drones, among other systems, which they claim are used by the Israeli military in Gaza. The Filton site's existence and operation attracted sustained opposition from Palestine Action.
Break-in
In the early hours of 6 August 2024, a group of Palestine Action activists drove a decommissioned prison van into the perimeter fence of the Elbit Systems site in Filton, using the vehicle effectively as a battering ram to breach the outer security barrier.
After breaking through, the activists entered the facility. Inside, they used tools including sledgehammers, crowbars and fire extinguishers filled with red paint to vandalise equipment, walls, and floors. According to the prosecution at their later trial, they damaged drones, technical systems and other sensitive materials, and sprayed red paint to symbolise "blood." The extent of the damage caused by the activists, and to what materials, was unclear during the trial. In the week before sentencing, a report was submitted by an independent forensic analyst based on Elbit's insurance claim. This listed damage to military assets including the "Magni-X" drone and multiple "Thor" drones in the "Legion-X" and "HELIOS" configurations.
During the break-in, there was a confrontation between the activists and responding security staff and police. Samuel Corner fractured police officer Kate Evans' spine with a sledgehammer. Body camera footage, revealed to the defence only partway through the first trial, showed one security guard, Angelo Volante, entering the site wielding a whip and later moving towards someone while holding a sledgehammer.
During the trial, it was revealed that the map of factory CCTV cameras given to the defence team was incomplete and lacked coverage of several areas, including those where disputed incidents took place. After the raid, Elbit had sole control and access to the CCTV system for two days following, according to PC Sarah Grant under cross-examination. Communication between that officer and a senior Elbit employee granted anonymity ("Witness Alpha") included her observation that "There's a huge opportunity for the defence counsel to use the gaps and jumps to their advantage", which was criticised by the defence barrister as appearing to show that police were "chatting with Israel's largest arms manufacturer about what the defence counsel might do".
Six people were arrested at the site that day, while additional arrests followed in nationwide raids in the days and months afterward. The total number of activists charged in relation to the break-in eventually reached 24, a group widely referred to as the "Filton 24".
In September 2025 Elbit Systems UK announced the closure of the Aztec West site following this raid and similar ones carried out both before and afterwards.
Legal proceedings Immediately after the break-in, the arrested suspects were detained under the UK Terrorism Act, allowing extended detention without charge. However, the formal charges later brought by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were not terrorism offences; instead they included aggravated burglary, criminal damage, and violent disorder. Nevertheless, the CPS indicated it would argue the offences had a "terrorist connection," which could be treated as an aggravating factor at sentencing. The judge did indeed rule in March 2025 that the defendants would be charged with that terrorism enhancement, though this information was kept secret from the jury and from the wider public until after some convictions were returned in May 2026. For the charge of aggravated burglary to be successful, the prosecution needed to prove the defendants entered the weapons factory with the intent to injure the people inside.
First 6 defendants, first trial (November 2025 - February 2026) The first major trial involving a subset of six activists - those accused of entering the factory - was scheduled for November 2025 at Woolwich Crown Court. By the time of the trial, some of the defendants had been held on remand for over a year, exceeding the usual six-month limit for being detained pre-trial without bail. The defendants denied all charges against them. The defence lawyers sought to halt proceedings for alleged abuse of processes making a fair trial impossible, claiming then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had been in contempt of court for authoring an article, published that August in The Observer, "which directly interferes with the court process". The article, which said the charges against the defendants included a "terrorism connection" and intimated "disturbing information" about potential "future attacks", was, according to the lawyers, "dripping in innuendo". Before publication, the CPS warned Cooper the article could unfairly impact the trial. The defence cited other statements from the government they claimed were false and would prejudice the trial. Once such statement, which the judge described as "misleading", was a report in The Times that Home Office officials said Iran could be funding Palestine Action. In a pre-trial ruling, the judge, Justice Johnson, dismissed the defence's application for abuse of process.
For the trial, the judge ruled inadmissible the defendants' defence of "lawful excuse": that they had done what they had done to prevent a greater harm - they'd destroyed weapons that would have been used to kill civilians in Gaza.
During proceedings, police released to the press edited prosecution footage from the night of 6 August 2024. The court was shown body-worn police footage, CCTV and video taken by activists' own devices including GoPros, capturing the van breach, the interior damage and the confrontations with police and security staff. The defence had to push during the trial for access to unredacted footage and correspondence between the police and Elbit staff. Some footage was missing. Newly-released footage showed Elbit security staff entering the factory with a whip, and at one stage holding a sledgehammer. The footage showed much of the violence was initiated by security staff. During examination, the police admitted Elbit had sole access to the factory CCTV footage for two days; correspondence, in the defence's words, showed the police "chatting with Israel's largest arms manufacturer about what the defence counsel might do" if the footage was edited excessively.
Police accounts changed under cross-examination by the defence. For example, in one attending officer's statement they said they saw one of the defendants holding a sledge hammer, but admitted under examination that it was one of the security staff who actually held it. There were two alleged assaults by the security guard on one of the defendants.
Summing up was expected to be completed on Friday 9 January. The trial ran for 10 weeks. On 4 February, after deliberating for over 36 hours, the jury returned a verdict of 'not guilty' for all six defendants regarding the charge of aggravated burglary. Other charges against these (criminal damage and violent disorder) resulted in no verdicts being returned. Three defendants, Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin, were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The CPS said the people tried would face retrial for the charges on which the jury were unable to reach a verdict.
All the remaining defendants of the so-called Filton 24 were acquitted of aggravated burglary on 18 February after prosecutors were unable to provide evidence to support the charge.
First 6 defendants, retrial (April - May 2026) Public comment during trial During the second trial, on 14 April 2026 the MP for Coventry Zarah Sultana used parliamentary privilege to raise concerns in the House of Commons regarding the amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. She stated the following: "Madam Deputy Speaker, I am going to exercise the privilege of this House to place something on the public record that the mainstream press has chosen to ignore."