Gaza protesters found guilty of factory damage
CPSPro-Palestine protesters who smashed a sign and sprayed red paint at a factory over its alleged links to Israel have been found guilty of causing criminal damage.
Hollie Mildenhall, 25, and Georgia Coote, 28, held an eight-hour stand-off on a roof at Pearson Engineering in Newcastle while Summer Oxlade, 29, tipped rubble from a truck, the city's crown court heard.
The women claimed their actions in February 2025 were lawful as their disruption would stop weapons being sent to kill people in Palestine, but jurors found their actions to be illegal.
Mildenhall and Coote, both from Newcastle, and Oxlade, from Houghton-le-Spring, were released on bail and will be sentenced on 29 April.
Each was wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Middle Eastern headscarf, in the dock, as were a number of supporters in the public gallery.
One of the women shouted "free Palestine" as they left the court.
The trial heard Pearson Engineering was owned by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, an Israeli-state owned weapons company, although a company representative told jurors no Tyneside-built creations had been supplied to Israel.
At about 05:20 GMT on 18 February 2025, Mildenhall and Coote climbed on to the roof of the Scotswood Road factory's gatehouse while Oxlade dumped rubble from a flatbed truck in the entrance before trying to chain herself to the vehicle, the court has heard.
CPSThe women on the roof sprayed red paint from fire extinguishers, cut through razor wire and smashed two illuminated panels of the firm's large sign, the court heard.
The cost of the damage was about £6,800, the court heard, and production was halted for a day.
Prosecutor Michael Bunch said the trio were "motivated by compassion and a desperate desire to do something", but they "acted unlawfully".
He said their occupation of the guardhouse would have sufficed in causing disruption and the damage they caused was "gratuitous" and for "performance purposes only".
Each of the women told jurors they wanted to stop the factory working for as long as possible in order to save lives in Gaza, with any damage leading to a longer shut down.
They said they believed the factory at the Armstrong Works was "complicit" in a "genocide" and was making weapons and machines to be used by Israel to commit "war crimes", which was "illegal".
The women said they tried to raise awareness and have the factory investigated by petitioning politicians and holding lawful protests, but to no avail.
Jurors took two hours and 15 minutes to reach unanimous verdicts.
'Law in their hands'
Judge Edward Bindloss had ruled out allowing the jury to consider several defences to criminal damage on the basis they did not apply to the women's actions.
He said the trio "decided to take the law into their own hands" rather than seek a "lawful route" to stop what they thought were the illegal actions of Pearson Engineering.
They "could and should" have collected evidence of the company's activities and presented it to police, the government or a court, the judge said.
The company had told the court it "did not export" to Israel and had no licences to do so, the judge said.
He also said they said they made "defensive military equipment", such as mine detection vehicles, which was supplied to the UK and other allies but "not Israel".
