Raytheon trial

bristol | protests | news report Thursday April 16, 2009 06:31 by libran Intelligence

Summary and conclusion of 2 day trial

At the end of last year there were several protests against Raytheon Systems ltd at their offices based at Frenchay Business Park, Bristol.

On April 14th and 15th, Elijah Smith or James to his friends, appeared at Yate Magistrates court charged with aggravated trespass under s68 of the Criminal Justice Act & Public Order Act,1994.

The charges were specific to 2 actions, carried out at different times, an overnight roof-top protest and a lock on to the main entrance to the office block where Raytheon is situated.

Raytheon make cluster bombs and bunker busters, which they supply to the Israelis. After attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and with attacks on Gaza pending James and many others felt it was time to take action.

On trial day 1 the prosecution presented lots of witnesses including a rep. for Premier Ofiice Holdings who own the building. The main purpose of this was to establish that business was disrupted and that workers were distressed by the protest. He stated that £25 000 of damage was done to the roof but the judged dismissed this because it included a later protest that lasted 5 weeks.
There then followed a stream of police who gave evidence as to the events of the 2 protests. This included inspector kevin Thatcher who was in charge of proceedings during the rooftop protest.
The inspector not only forgot the name of Raytheon but also what he said in his statement as he was caught out by the defence council time and time again. So much so that the District Judge in his summing up , concluded that his evidence was 'vague and sketchy'. The Police claimed that slates were dislodged from the roof but no evidence was offered. They also got 'confused' as to which section of the Act to use when issueing warnings to the people on the roof.

The prosecution produced a video of both protests, the film of the lock on was, at the very least disturbing. As inspector Peter Warren felt it was 'not appropriate' to search James for the key to the D lock, Sgt 2627 James Goddard
who leads the demonstration removal team of 3 was called in to remove it with hydraulic cutters. Afterwards, James was pushed to the ground by 5 police officers, while 2 others passed over a series of straps used to 'truss' him up, before he was carried to the meat wagon. All the time he was cuffed so none of this was necessary and all the time all the police, including those not in the film, sniggered and joked about what they were doing.

On day 2 James gave his evidence and was cross examined by the prosecutor who wasn't very effective. James held his own very well. The judge spent nearly an hour going over evidence and point of law.

There was an overall guilty decision, because the judge considered that the two protests were one event separated by time.
The judge didn't accept any of the police evidence about the rooftop protest, and found that the owner's rep. was probably confused about events.
He also accepted that to go on the roof was a spontaneous decision made on the day.
He did find that work was disrupted when James locked on but not that there was an intent to stop work.
In the end, because of his previous and because it wasn't possible to give a community penalty, James got ten weeks to serve 5 weeks. No costs were incurred.
Usefully we now know that Lockheed Martin is operational in the building and we now know who owns the building.