Leona Kamio (30), who prefers to be known as ‘Ellie’, was next on the stand following Sam Corner on 9 and 10 December.
The gruelling day of a prisoner attending trial
Her barrister, Ms Hammad, began by asking her about her day.
Ellie said that as usual, she was woken up in her cell at HMP Bronzefield at 5am. Because of her dietary requirements, the prison had said they would send a packed lunch with her in the Serco prison van. She knew this might not happen “because the system is such a ‘shitshow’”, so she saved some of yesterday’s food to bring in case.
It turned out she was right – there was no food for any of the four defendants from Bronzefield – so she’d shared what she had with the others. She also hasn’t slept well for four nights because there’s a lot of shouting on her prison wing.
Why she took action
Ellie was working as a Forest School teacher up before the action, spending time outdoors with 2-4 year olds. The court later heard a glowing character witness statement from the head teacher. Before that she had spent three years performing with a band which got signed to Island Records.
In 2024, she attended a Palestine solidarity night, and that led to watching posts on social media from a Palestine journalist.
Real Media reports: “She started crying as she described some of the footage she saw. One was of a body bag of a decapitated body, and then she saw a child picking up parts of his mother’s body and putting them in a plastic bag to bury her.”
““She started crying as she described some of the footage she saw… a child picking up parts of his mother’s body and putting them in a plastic bag to bury her.”
This was when she thought more about Palestine Action, and ended up attending a training day in London in May. Here she heard from a Palestinian journalist about the history of Israel’s illegal occupation.
She described how people introduced themselves at the meeting, and a common theme emerged that people felt they had done everything they could [about the genocide], and that they felt they needed to do more. She had gone on marches and had written to her MPs and felt this had not achieved anything. She expressed an interest in a ‘high level action’.
Ellie said that ultimately, she went into the factory with a sledgehammer in order to help prevent a genocide, because the weapons being made were being sent to Israel to kill people. She had heard that Elbit’s Filton site was the newest and largest of their factories – Elbit’s “crown jewel”, opened by the Israeli ambassador herself. She confirmed that no part of the action was intended to hurt anyone.
“She went into the factory with a sledgehammer in order to help prevent a genocide, because the weapons being made were being sent to Israel to kill people”
Violence in the factory
She didn’t believe anyone at Palestine Action was intending to use violence, and she said that if she or Charlotte or Fatema had heard this they’d all have said ‘no way’, because they had DBS certificates for work.
“Ellie said she’d been following Palestine Action for years and there had never been any incident where violence was used against security. She said that is not what any of them had signed up to, it’s not what Palestine Action was about.”
As her evidence continued however, she described the violence of the Elbit security guards. Within minutes of them entering the warehouse, three of them came in, and Ellie said the scene was ‘overwhelming’.
First she said Patrick Luke had Lottie screaming on the floor, and Nigel Shaw looked like he wanted to jab her with his umbrella. But she described Angelo Volante as a “psycho, like he’d trained for this and was going to take them on”. She said he was in the alcove (where the security camera footage has not been produced) swinging a sledgehammer wildly, then seemed to suddenly have an angle-grinder and a hammer.
“She described Angelo Volante as a ‘psycho, like he’d trained for this and was going to take them on’”
Jordan was trying to calm Volante down, but Ellie said he was acting dangerously, lunging with the angle-grinder at people. She was worried he could literally cut somebody’s limb off.
Ellie’s fears about Elbit
Real Media reports:
“She felt it likely Elbit had told their security to teach Palestine Action a lesson because they were losing a lot of money due to all the actions against them. She knew they hire ex-military people, so really thought they were all going to get beaten up.
Asked why she thought Elbit would do that, Ellie said she’d watched a video of Elbit’s CEO giving a tour and boasting about how good the war had been for business. In the same promo video they interviewed employees who wore lab coats, and they said they saw themselves as civil soldiers for the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), and ‘proud to be the backbone of the IDF’.
“Ellie said she’d watched a video of Elbit’s CEO giving a tour and boasting about how good the war had been for business”
She also knew what the IDF do to Palestinians – a neighbour of her mother had been imprisoned in a Israeli prison and had directly witnessed Israeli guards raping Palestinians, and sexually assaulting them with a metal pole. She said they have no regard for human life whatsoever. So if these are the type of people that Elbit hires, they wouldn’t care about protesters for Palestine and wouldn’t care about harming her.”
Tasered twice
In police body worn video footage shown to the court, Ellie is shown being tasered, and screaming in pain. During cross-examination the officer who tasered her admitted that he had only shouted ‘Taser, taser! after discharging the taser, giving her no time to react. Then, because an attempt to taser Sam Corner didn’t work – the barbs did not connect properly – when he fires the taser again, Ellie receives a second, painful shock.
She continues shouting and struggling in the footage.
“When he fires the taser again, Ellie receives a second, painful shock”
Real Media reports: “she was in a lot of pain as she’d just been tasered, had smashed her chin as she fell to the ground, and the policeman was turning her around, which was pushing the taser barbs into her. He was pulling her arm round behind her and she was begging him to put the cuffs on the front. Ellie said he was kneeling on her and bending her wrist, all of which was painful.
Ms Hammad shows a series of injuries in Ellie’s medical report after arrests, which include quite a long list of bruises, scratches, taser wounds, and even a possible fracture on a finger. It describes sledgehammer damage to her hand, but she couldn’t remember when that happened.”
Welcome to return to her job
Finally the court heard a character witness statement from her former head teacher at the Forest School where she worked. It included:
“Since Léona has been away from the nursery, her absence has had a big impact on the children and the team. She is adored by everyone. The children, who are very young, have been upset and confused by her absence and ask about her often. Her job remains open for her, and the parents and children would love to have her back at the nursery as soon as possible.”
That was the end of Ellie Kamio’s case. The next defendants are Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin.
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