An Israeli-owned arms factory was attacked in the early hours of the morning. A prison van was driven through a perimeter fence and used as a battering ram. Protesters entered the site wearing red jumpsuits, wielding sledgehammers, flares and fire extinguishers. Police were confronted. A serving officer's spine was fractured. None of this is disputed. Much of it was caught on camera. And yet six activists walked free.
They were cleared not because the acts did not occur, but because the law was quietly bent around their cause. Violence was reframed as protest. Weapons were downgraded to tools. Intent was dissolved into belief. The jury was not asked to judge what was done, but what the defendants claimed to feel. Justice was not blind; it was selective.
In any functioning legal system, motive does not neutralise violence. You do not get to ram-raid a factory because you "genuinely believe" you are on the right side of history. You do not get to swing a sledgehammer near a police officer because you "did not intend" to hurt anyone. You do not fracture a spine and then retreat behind moral sincerity. Since when did belief become a defence? Since violence began to be graded by politics.
The truth is uncomfortable but obvious. If the same acts had been carried out by a nationalist group – a prison van driven into a factory linked to Gaza, police injured in the process – the outcome would have been swift and brutal. There would have been terrorism charges, exemplary sentences, and sermons about deterrence. No indulgence. No benefit of the doubt. Everyone knows this. Including the police.
That is why the Police Federation's response matters. It was measured, restrained, and quietly damning. Officers expect the law to stand behind them when they are seriously injured in the line of duty. In this case, it did not. What they saw instead was hesitation, indulgence, and a system fearful of being seen as firm. A state that cannot protect its own officers evenly cannot expect loyalty in return.
This was not an isolated failure. It fits a pattern the public has learned to recognise. Tweets are criminalised. Jokes are investigated. Peaceful protesters are kettled, searched, and charged. Meanwhile, organised militant groups who cloak themselves in fashionable causes are handled with gloves, caveats and excuses. The law has not been rewritten; it has been selectively applied.
And that is why trust is draining away. Not because people want chaos, but because they can see that order is no longer neutral. Justice now depends on who you are, what you believe, and which slogans you carry. When juries are encouraged to weigh belief over action, the rule of law is already wobbling. When courts fear public reaction more than principle, the state has begun to retreat.
This verdict will be studied. It will be tested. Others will learn from it. The message sent was not that violence is unacceptable, but that violence is negotiable – provided it comes wrapped in the right ideology.
That is the real scandal. Not six people walking free, but a system quietly admitting it no longer applies the law evenly. When that happens, public anger is not irrational. It is the last remaining form of honesty.
"A prison van was driven through a perimeter fence and used as a battering ram. Protesters entered the site wearing red jumpsuits, wielding sledgehammers, flares and fire extinguishers."
