Palestine Action defendant ‘missed the last year’ of his mother’s life while behind bars

A defendant accused of involvement in a Palestine Action raid on an Israeli-owned arms factory said his mother died of terminal cancer while he was held on remand.

William Plastow, 35, is among eight defendants facing charges in connection with a raid on an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol, in August 2024.

He told the court that he had been held on remand for 18 months following his arrest on 9 August 2024, but was granted bail on compassionate grounds to spend the lastfour days of his mother’s life at her bedside.

“I missed the last year of her life,” Plastow said.

The defendants are accused of coordinating the break-in by conducting reconnaissance and purchasing equipment, but are not alleged to have entered the factory premises during the raid.

Last week, Plastow was acquitted of violent disorder by the presiding judge, Patrick Field, who concluded that the prosecution had not produced enough evidence against him. He continues to face criminal damage charges.

Plastow admits he purchased equipment for Palestine Action but denies knowing it was intended for use in the raid, stating he was unaware of the site’s existence at the time. 

He is the only one of the defendants not alleged to have travelled to Bristol to assist with the action, instead remaining at his home in Manchester.

When giving evidence on Thursday, Plastow said that he was arrested by “about 20” counter terrorism police days after the raid and then held for six days “in a little white room with no windows and lights that didn’t go off”, like “Hannibal Lecter”.

“That was the last day I got to spend with my mum before she was on her deathbed,” he said.

He told the court that the first he had heard of the Filton action was via a tweet from Palestine Action on the morning of 6 August.

The post read: “By dismantling machinery and weapons, they directly intervened in Elbit’s genocidal supply chain.”

‘Zyklon gas being made 10 minutes up the road’

The court heard that Plastow, who is the grandson of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, was brought up by his mother, Jane Plastow, in Leeds.

“Just me and Jane, that was the whole family,” he said.

Plastow recalled frequent childhood trips with his mother to Eritrea and Ethiopia, where she conducted social outreach through theatre with war veterans and impoverished children.

He told jurors that his awareness of Israel’s actions in Gaza “increased vastly” in the wake of 7 October 2023, and that he was “seeing those images every day of kids being blown into pieces, massacres, buildings being knocked down with everyone inside them”.

When asked by his lawyer, Alex Rose, how he felt seeing these images, he responded: “How is anyone supposed to feel about seeing dismembered children and not being able to do anything about it?”

Plastow said he had done “all the stuff you’re supposed to do”, including marches, writing to his MP, signing petitions, but noted that “it felt very obvious that all of that was pretty futile”.

‘How is anyone supposed to feel about seeing dismembered children and not being able to do anything about it?’

– William Plastow

He recalled that the first time he had heard of Palestine Action was in connection with a rooftop occupation targeting a landlord of Elbit Systems, who subsequently distanced themselves from the arms company.

“I was interested, I looked them up a bit,” he said, adding that the group “actually managed to close several factories that were sending genocidal machinery to slaughter children in Gaza”.

He started explaining that he “found it very shocking Elbit supplied 85 percent of” before he was interrupted by lawyers.

“It felt like finding out this was the Holocaust and the Zyklon gas being used in Auschwitz was being made 10 minutes up the road and no one had a problem with that.”

Plastow said he then attended a training run by Palestine Action in which the participants heard from a Palestinian from Gaza who described “unimaginable suffering”. He was again interrupted by lawyers.

‘Need to know basis’

Following the training day, Plastow said that he indicated he would be prepared to be involved in a “low level” action involving a lock-on.

In April 2024, Plastow drove a vehicle at low speed into a bollard outside the entrance to Elbit’s drone factory, UAV Tactical Systems, in Leicester and locked himself to the steering wheel. He was convicted of criminal damage in connection with the incident.

Plastow said that the operation was conducted on a “need to know basis”, and that he was provided with “very little information” ahead of the action.

Barrister Rose observed that questions raised by the prosecution “aimed to give the impression of careful organisation” where “everyone with a role knows everything”.

Plastow responded that “nothing about Palestine Action could be described as highly organised”.

‘I knew they were going to be used towards the aims of Palestine Action, which were ultimately to save lives’

-William Plastow

He said the group were “chaotic” and a “bunch of loosely connected people scrabbling around”.

Following the action, Plastow said he was contacted by the group, which asked whether he wanted any further involvement. 

He said he was very busy and that he had “no interest in doing another action as an actionist”, but was happy to “potentially purchase things” if his schedule permitted.

Rose noted that Plastow was added to several Signal groups around late June 2024, but he did not post in any of them and consistently rejected incoming calls from them. 

When cross-examining Plastow, prosecutor Harry Warner suggested that, when the defendant agreed to purchase items for Palestine Action, he knew that they “would be used to damage property belonging to Elbit”.

Plastow responded: “I knew they were going to be used towards the aims of Palestine Action, which were ultimately to save lives.”

‘Deeply surprised’

In early August 2024, Plastow said he was contacted on Signal by his co-defendant Sean Middlebrough, asking him to buy equipment – including rucksacks, protective gear and crow bars – without telling him what it would be used for.

He was given access to a document listing the items he needed to buy.

“It was a very busy time for me, a play I’d been trying to put together was falling apart,” Platsow told the court. “I was just paying attention to the things I’d been asked to buy and get them ready in as time-efficient a way as possible.”

When Rose asked whether he knew the equipment would be used in connection with the action at Filton, Plastow responded that he “had not heard of the site at the time”.

The court heard that Middlebrough had reimbursed Plastow for the items he bought and told him that someone would collect them from his home in Manchester.

On 3 August, Charlotte Head, who was a member of the “red team” – a group of activists who broke into the site itself – turned up at Plastow’s home in a prison van to collect the items.

Plastow said he was “deeply surprised” and “not especially happy” about the arrival of the vehicle.

He told the court that Head seemed “frazzled” and that she eventually told him she “didn’t actually know where she’s going to go”.  

“She seemed to think that there would be somewhere she’s going to go, but there had been communication that she couldn’t go there,” Plastow told jurors.

He recalled that she had asked him if he knew what was going on. He responded that he did not.

“It seemed that everything was quite chaotic and it was a ‘need to know’ question. When I said ‘no’, we all knew that I wasn’t ‘need to know’,” he told jurors, adding that the interaction subsequently “got even cagier”.

Plastow said he allowed Head to stay for the night and expected her to leave the following day at midday, but that “time kept slipping”.

He told the court that he had repeatedly contacted Middlebrough, but kept getting “fobbed off”.

When Rose asked him about a series of calls to Middlebrough, Plastow responded: “I was pretty annoyed, I was going ‘what the hell is going on’”. He added that he felt “messed around”.

Later that day, Head was joined by co-defendants Ian Sanders and Middlebrough, who left together in the prison van.

When prosecutor Warner suggested to Plastow that he was “trying to assist [Head] to cause damage to Elbit’s property”, he responded: “I was trying to assist a young woman who was stressed out to have a place to stay for the night and not have to sleep in a van.”

‘I was really frightened’

When asked by Rose if he had “any idea” what was about to unfold in the early hours of 6 August, Plastow said he had “never even heard of the Filton site”.

Plastow said that, after seeing a BBC News update about the raid, he immediately “strongly suspected” that the items he had bought had been used in connection with it.

“That prison van is very distinctive,” he said, adding that he felt “duped” and that he “wouldn’t have agreed” to play his role had he known the scale of the action.

“But I was nothing like as concerned as I would be after the first terrorism arrest,” he said.

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The court heard that Plastow was then contacted by another Palestine Action activist informing him of the raid and telling him that several people had been arrested under terrorism powers. They urged that he should “be prepared”.

“I was really frightened,” Plastow said. “I also think there was a strong element of denial… It was so far away; it happened when I was asleep.”

He recalled panicking and throwing his Monzo bank card down a drain, but keeping his phone, which police recovered from his kitchen when he was arrested.

“I couldn’t really imagine that that was going to happen to me,” Plastow said, referring to his arrest.

Rose told the jury that forensic analysis of Plastow’s phone and laptop found no evidence of access to an encrypted document allegedly used to plan the action at Filton, and no history of him accepting group calls via the Signal app.

Jurors also heard that the analysis found no history of internet searches, communications, documents or notes referencing the Filton site prior to 6 August 2024.

The only references to the incident before 6 August were access to an X post about the action at around 8am on 6 August.

Plastow told the court that this was the first he had heard of the site and plans to target it.

The analysis showed that Plastow had subsequently accessed a BBC article on 7 August detailing the arrests of seven people in connection with the raid.

The trial continues.