The recent acquittal of seven activists charged with smashing up a Brighton factory they accused of supplying arms to Israel has attracted attention primarily because of the anti-Israel remarks of the judge, George Bathurst-Norman. His summing-up to the jury at the crown court in Hove, now available online, is startlingly tendentious, but the case is part of a wider trend of English juries returning “not guilty” verdicts on people who have damaged the property of companies they disapproved of.
In 2000, 28 Greenpeace activists were acquitted of destroying a field of genetically modified maize they said could contaminate neighbouring crops. In 2008, an English jury returned a “not guilty” verdict on six Greenpeace members who caused £30,000 of damage to a power station owned by Eon, the German energy group, because they objected to plans to build a coal-powered generating plant on the site.
In the Brighton case, the seven were charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage after they broke into a factory owned by EDO MBM, part of ITT of the US, during the 2009 Gaza conflict, causing £187,000 of damage. The factory, which they accused of supplying bombing equipment for US-supplied F16 jets used by Israel, had to close for a week.