Storm Pedro to bring snow and more heavy rain to UK

A new weather system, named Storm Pedro by forecasters, is set to bring snow and heavy rain to the UK this week.

The latest naming comes from Meteo France, the French national weather service, which predicts the storm will have a drastic effect.

On this side of the Channel, however, the impact of Storm Pedro is likely to be relatively minor, with snow mainly confined to the hills.

Yellow weather warnings are in place for Wednesday and Thursday across parts of the country, predicting bouts of snow, rain and ice.

The Met Office said: “There is the potential for an area of rain and snow to affect parts of Wales, central England and into the southern Pennines during Wednesday evening and overnight into Thursday.”

Some ice is also likely to develop on untreated surfaces across parts of Wales and western England.

The areas where rain, sleet and snow is forecasted will gradually clear to the east during Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning, and temperatures will fall close to, or a little below, freezing,

The Met Office has also issued a rain and snow warning for Northern Ireland from 4am Wednesday until 8pm Wednesday. Outbreaks of rain, hill snow and strong winds may bring some disruption to travel, the forecasters warn.

There is a slight chance of the weather causing travel delays on roads with some stranded vehicles and passengers, along with delayed or cancelled rail and air travel. There is also a small chance of rural communities experiencing power cuts or outages to phone services.

The Met Office said: “An area of rain, falling as snow over some high ground, will move slowly east across much of Northern Ireland during Wednesday, before tending to ease later in the day. This will be accompanied by strong southeasterly winds which may gust 45-55mph in places, particularly during the morning. Rainfall totals of 10-15mm are predicted fairly widely, with 20-30mm in some southern and western areas.”

The snow will mainly accumulate on higher ground above 250m, mainly over the Sperrins during the morning, with little if any lying snow.

There will be some spells of heavy rain affecting southern parts of England during Wednesday and overnight into Thursday, while some snow is also likely over higher ground, mainly during Wednesday night.

This will be accompanied by strong, east to northeasterly winds, which could exacerbate the impact in places. Large waves could affect some east-facing coasts, particularly along the English channel.

The Met Office has advised residents to prepare flood kits filled with torches, batteries, mobile phone power packs and other essential items.

Despite a period of rain and gloomy weather, the temperatures are expected to pick up again towards the weekend, reaching highs of 14C in Exeter on Saturday, according to Met Office.

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Terrifying moment avalanche smothers crowd of fleeing skiers in Italian Alps

Dramatic footage of an avalanche in the Italian Alps showing the moment skiers attempt to flee from the vast plume of snow.

A mass of snow can be seen rumbling down a steep slope towards a crowd of skiers near the Italian resort of Courmayeur on Tuesday.

Waiting at the Zerotta chairlift in Val Veny, the crowd at first appears indifferent, some even skiing towards the huge avalanche. But in the moments before it hits, many start frantically trying to escape the descending white cloud of snow and ice.

Young children can be seen desperately trying to sky uphill away from the avalanche, while several stumble to the ground as they sought safety.

It is the latest in a series of avalanches which have struck the European Alps, in a deadly week which has seen at least three Britons killed in France.

The avalanche in Courmayeur came just days after two people were killed in an avalanche in the same resort on Sunday, around 200km from where the Winter Olympic Games are taking place in Milan.

Italy’s alpine rescuers said last week that fresh snowfall from recent storms, combined with wind-swept snowcaps resting on weak internal layers, has created particularly hazardous conditions across the entire Alpine crescent, which borders France, Switzerland, and Austria.

On Tuesday, a British man and a French man died near the resort town of La Grave in the French Alps, bringing the total number of avalanche-related deaths in France to 27, according to Le Monde.

The avalanche risk in the La Grave area was listed as “high” on Tuesday, according to the French weather service Meteo France.

On Monday, two British skiers and another French skier were killed while skiing off-piste in the Val d’Isère ski resort in south-east France when they were swept away by an avalanche late on Friday morning. One of the Britons was named as keen skier Leslie Stuart.

Meteo France had issued a red alert for avalanches in the area just one day before the incident, with Val d’Isère ski resort strongly advising skiers against going off-piste.

Last Thursday, rescuers said a record 13 skiers, climbers, and hikers have died in the Italian mountains in the week beforehand. Ten of those fatalities were attributed to avalanches, triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack.

“Under such conditions, the passage of a single skier, or natural overloading from the weight of snow, can be sufficient to trigger an avalanche,” Federico Catania, spokesman for Italy’s Alpine Rescue Corps, warned.

Prince William says it has taken ‘long time to understand my emotions’

Prince William has opened up about how he takes a “long time” to understand his emotions during a surprise radio appearance.

The Prince of Wales appeared on an episode of BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks on Wednesday during a panel discussion about mental health and suicide prevention.

Hosted by radio presenter Greg James, the future king was joined by an “extraordinary” panel, which included rapper Professor Green and grime artist Guvna B, as well as Allan Brownrigg, director of clinical services at James’ Place charity, and a young carer named Nathan, who shared his personal experiences on the subject.

William said it was a “real national catastrophe” that suicide prevention and men’s mental health were such a taboo topic, before getting candid about his own emotional journey.

He said: “I take a long time trying to understand my emotions and why I feel like I do, and I feel like that’s a really important process to do every now and again, to check in with yourself and work out why you’re feeling like you do.

“Sometimes there’s an obvious explanation, sometimes there isn’t. I think that idea that mental health crisis is temporary – you can have a strong mental health crisis moment, but it will pass.”

Prince William encouraged people to “learn to love yourself and understand yourself” as he emphasised the importance of “more male role models out there, talking about it and normalising it, so that it becomes second nature to all of us”.

The Prince and Princess of Wales launched the National Suicide Prevention Network last October on World Mental Health Day in an effort to transform suicide prevention in the UK.

The Royal Foundation invested £1 million in funding over an initial three-year period to focus on understanding the root causes of suicide, ensuring accessible support and strengthening collaboration to achieve the greatest possible impact.

The initiative is being joined by four charities – James’ Place, PIPS Suicide Prevention Ireland, Mikeysline and the Jac Lewis Foundation, representing England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – as founding partners, alongside the Hub of Hope, the UK’s largest mental health support directory.

As part of the launch, the Prince of Wales spoke with campaigner Rhian Mannings, whose one-year-old son George died after suffering a seizure in 2012 and whose husband Paul died by suicide five days later. He looked visibly moved as he fought back tears while discussing the devastating impact of suicide and the need for better support for those at risk.

Being Gordon Ramsay is sanitised propaganda that lacks proper honesty

During the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 – while most people were nurturing sourdough starters like they were human babies – I developed an unhealthy obsession with Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. From the faces he’d pull during the kitchen inspection to the inevitable disgust at that first bite of food, Gordon Ramsay’s inimitably charismatic screen presence bore me through the period. Now he’s back, with glossy Netflix series Being Gordon Ramsay, and turning the camera on his own project, a multi-restaurant development at the top of a new London skyscraper.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Tana, Gordon’s patient wife, tells her husband, as they relax on the sofa. “Really, the biggest thing you’ve done to date.” And Ramsay’s plan is ambitious. He’s taken a 20-year lease on a vast space at the top of 22 Bishopsgate, in which he intends to open four different projects. There’s Gordon Ramsay High, a spin-off of his Michelin-starred fine dining establishment on the Royal Hospital Road; Lucky Cat, leaping over from Mayfair; a branch of his Bread Street Kitchen chain; and an on-site culinary school. “The whole sector is struggling,” Ramsay tells viewers, as he embarks on a packed schedule of meetings with chefs, designers, builders and customers. He’s here, in some ways, to reassert the power of the restaurant, of the hospitality industry, at a time when things are “pretty dire”. But, in other, more striking ways, he’s here to reassert the power of the Gordon Ramsay brand.

“I’m a hard and difficult person to work for,” he confesses to the camera, but viewers will already know this from Ramsay’s decades on our television screens. He has graduated from serious chef (earning a rare three-Michelin-star designation for his namesake outfit) to television staple and, ultimately, culinary tycoon. The show sees him barrel between London, Las Vegas, Miami and even Manila. He hangs out with the rich and famous, walks the Formula One paddocks, is brown-nosed by other chefs and restaurateurs. And the giant, decadent space of 22 Bishopsgate symbolises this elevation: a great phallic tourist trap, in which Ramsay can deploy new branches of his existing restaurants. Any jeopardy raised by the financial stakes of the endeavour (Ramsay claims to have put in £20m) is offset by the knowledge that you are, at that very moment, watching an advert for it. You, the viewer, are part of the marketing plan.

On Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay has clear values. His feedback is harsh but fair, his scrutiny of the establishments thorough and unflinching. Because the show is Ramsay’s magnum opus, Being Gordon Ramsay feels strikingly lacking in self-criticism or introspection. “Sometimes it’s like a live version of Kitchen Nightmares,” he jokes, as they soft-launch the food court. Yet it’s not. There are some carefully curated bumps on the road (guests steal cat charms, a fat fryer overheats, a banquette collapses under Ramsay’s weight), but overwhelmingly the show is more interested in food and lifestyle porn. The implosion of the Bread Street Kitchen project at 22 Bishopsgate (it has still not opened) is skirted over quickly, when that story may well have been more interesting than the successful launch of RGR High and Lucky Cat. Ramsay, it feels, is too big to fail. Both in the ability of his brand to carry early reservations and bring in hype, and in the reality that he cannot sully his project with the aroma of disappointment.

It means that Being Gordon Ramsay fails to deploy its best asset: Ramsay’s honesty. In its fixation with providing an effective advert for 22 Bishopsgate, the show fails to pick up far more intriguing threads. Ramsay’s rivalry with Marco Pierre White, for example, or why, in 2019, 18 years after the birth of their daughter Tilly, Gordon and Tana decided to have two more children, six-year-old Oscar and two-year-old Jesse. There’s a psychologically compelling show to be made about Gordon Ramsay, but this isn’t it, and perhaps Netflix (which has produced several vain celebrity documentaries, from Beckham to With Love, Meghan) isn’t the broadcaster for it. Just as Gordon is a supporter of Glasgow’s historic Rangers FC, yet his kid is shown wearing the colours of social media darlings Inter Miami, so too does the entire Ramsay formula feel like it has become sanitised, commercialised, and, worst of all, Americanised.

Which is a shame because Ramsay is one of Britain’s best telly exports, and he deserves to be making something better than his own propaganda. Being Gordon Ramsay is an easy watch, but it has little to say about food, little to say about the restaurant business, and little to say about the man himself. Far from being the Kitchen Nightmares lens turned on its presenter, Being Gordon Ramsay is the latest in a line of biographical documentaries that offer their subjects far too much power.

Trial of climber who left ‘girlfriend to die’ on mountain to begin

The trial of an Alpine climber charged with manslaughter after he left his girlfriend on Austria’s highest mountain before she froze to death, is due to begin on Thursday.

Thomas Plamberger and Kerstin Gurtner were just 50m away from the 3,798m (12,460ft) summit of Grossglockner when she started suffering from exhaustion and disorientation, according to the Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office.

Mr Plamberger decided to leave her at 2am on Sunday, 19 January last year and descend to the nearest mountain hut to seek help, only returning six and a half hours later in the morning to find her dead, according to the public prosecutor.

Gurtner, 33, froze to death alone on the mountain after she was left in -8C temperatures, with winds of up to 45mph contributing to temperatures that “feel” as low as -20C.

Prosecutors undertook an 11-month investigation into the incident and examined the couple’s mobile phones, sports watches, and photographs of their climb, as well as commissioning an independent report from an Alpine mountaineering expert.

They have now charged Mr Plamberger with negligent manslaughter, arguing that he made nine key mistakes that led to Gurtner’s death, from not planning the expedition properly to failing to make contact with search teams and police.

The trial, which opens in Innsbruck, Austria, will focus on whether Mr Plamberger’s actions amounted to gross negligent manslaughter.

Prosecutors argue that, as the more experienced climber and the person who organised the ascent of the Grossglockner, he was the “responsible guide for the tour”.

Mr Plamberger has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer has previously rejected part of the Innsbruck prosecutors’ timeline of events, claiming he left Gurtner on the mountain “by mutual agreement”.

Prosecutors say the couple set off two hours too late on the morning of 18 January to realistically summit Grossglockner and return safely.

They effectively became stranded by stormy weather at approximately 8.50pm, but prosecutors allege that Mr Plamberger made no attempts to call for help and did not issue any distress signals to a police helicopter that flew over their position at 10.50pm.

Police tried to call Mr Plamberger multiple times before he called an officer back at 12.35am. The prosecutor’s office said the contents of the call remained “unclear” but that Mr Plamberger then put his phone on silent and no further contact was made.

“At approximately 2am, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50m [metres] below the summit cross of the Grossglockner. The woman froze to death,” the statement said.

“Since the defendant, unlike his girlfriend, was already very experienced with alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the tour, he was to be considered the responsible guide of the tour,” it added.

The defence, led by lawyer Karl Jelinek, described Gurtner’s death as a “tragic accident” and disputed parts of the prosecution timeline.

He argued the couple planned the expedition together, believed they were sufficiently experienced and properly equipped, and only encountered sudden difficulties close to the summit.

At 12.35am on 19 January, Mr Plamberger contacted mountain police, though the exact details of the conversation remain unclear. His lawyer says he requested assistance and denies that he told officers everything was fine. Prosecutors allege he then put his phone on silent and did not answer further calls.

Mr Jelinek denies that his client ignored police calls or failed to seek help promptly.

The Grossglockner is considered one of the most challenging climbs in the Austrian Alps, requiring full climbing and glacier gear.

Yet police said Mr Plamberger allowed his girlfriend to use a splitboard – a snowboard that can be divided into two parts to be used like skis for climbing – and soft snowboard boots, equipment that prosecutors said was unsuitable for their high-alpine winter route.

He also allegedly failed to move his girlfriend to a position where she would be sheltered from the wind or to give her their bivouac sleeping bag or aluminium foil blankets to keep her warm before he left.

Prosecutors said the woman was inexperienced and had never undertaken an alpine tour of this length, difficulty, and altitude.

In a series of posts on his now-deleted Instagram, Mr Plamberger said Gurtner’s death was “hurting so much”.

“I miss you so much. It hurts so incredibly much. Forever in my heart. Without you, time is meaningless”, he wrote on social media, and co-signed the obituary her parents wrote, according to Bild.

Tributes on Gurtner’s page since her death have described her as a “beloved daughter, sister, sister-in-law, godmother, granddaughter, partner and friend”.

“Thank you, dear Kerstin, for being you, for being you, and for your soul always will be. Thank you for the mark you left not only on me, but on so many others. Through you, you live on here as well,” a friend of Gurtner wrote.

If Mr Plamberger is found guilty, he could face up to three years in prison.

Traditions and tastes to savour: Hong Kong at Chinese new year

The air crackles and sparkles with pink, red, green and gold as fireworks stream through the inky skies. Crowds gather either side of Victoria Harbour, awestruck by a spectacle that outshines even Hong Kong’s iconic skyscrapers.

Held annually on the second day of Chinese New Year, this incredible display is just one highlight in a calendar of must-experience events that will herald the Year of the Horse this February. Daytimes are equally vivid; streets bloom with flower stalls and colourful paper lanterns, while the air is perfumed with incense, citrus fruits and crisp yau gok: fried dumplings believed to bring good fortune for the year ahead.

Hong Kong is at its brightest and boldest during Chinese New Year celebrations, with all its rich customs, cultural traditions and culinary delights on dazzling display. Here we explore the events and spectacles that usher in the Year of the Horse, offering a glimpse of what this diverse, compelling destination offers throughout the seasons.

There’s no danger of missing the celebrations. Stretching over 15 days, this is a party that barely pauses to take a breath (or snack on a rice ball). Festivities traditionally start with the Night Parade on the 17th of February in Tsim Sha Tsui, on the southern tip of the Kowloon peninsula. The area is famed for its skyline views across the harbour and this event, held on the first night of the new year, brings spectacle after breathtaking spectacle, with dancers and musicians starting the party in style before the floats parade past, each one more colourful and ornately decorated than the last.

Another highlight in this stellar line-up of events is the annual Raceday. Locals and visitors gather at Sha Tin Racecourse to try their luck and usher in good fortune with lion dances, where lavishly costumed performers shake and shimmy away evil spirits. It’s one of the biggest days in the racing calendar and new year celebrations, so the atmosphere – whether watching a nail-biting finish to races like the Chinese New Year Cup or seeing top musicians perform – is guaranteed to be electric.

Throughout the new year period – and beyond – moments of celebration and quiet reflection can be found all around the city. Flower markets fill the streets with vivid hues with the heady scents of chrysanthemums, orchids and peach blossom among the blooms believed to bring good luck. Victoria Park, a verdant bubble of calm in the midst of the urban bustle, hosts one of the biggest and most impressive markets, while petals and floral charms add pops of colour to every stretch and corner of Hong Kong.

The region is rich in cultural sites and monuments that can be enjoyed any time of year, but are enhanced during this time of vibrant celebration. The Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees in the Tai Po District, for example, draw visitors with the promise of making dreams come true via wishes, written on a piece of joss paper and hung on nearby wooden racks – while Chinese New Year festivities throw live music, food stalls and traditional dancing into the mix.

It’s a wonderful window onto the rich heritage of Lam Tsuen, an area made up of 26 traditional villages where ancient practices and customs are very much, and vividly so, alive. Nearby Tin Hau Temple, dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, was built in 1865 by local fishermen. Today, worshippers and tourists alike visit the site in the busy Yau Ma Tei area, burning coils of incense or simply soaking up the bustling, scent-filled atmosphere.

Hong Kong’s temples draw even bigger crowds to partake in and witness rituals that are specific to the new year. At Wong Tai Sin, the first worshippers to burn incense are believed to be the most blessed for the year ahead. Man Mo, in the heart of the city, sees worshippers pray for good fortune and health in the tradition of An Tai Sui – a Taoist ritual practised by those whose birthdays conflict with the ruling zodiac sign of that year. While at Che Kung Temple in Sha Tin, kau chim or fortune sticks are drawn to predict the year ahead.

One core element threaded throughout all the celebrations is food. From tangerines believed to bring luck, to dumplings doled out by street vendors and impeccable chef-led menus served at the most coveted tables in town, Chinese New Year serves up a mouthwatering array of edible delights.

Traditional tastes here go deeper than mere deliciousness; they are firmly rooted in Hong Kong’s culture and history. Fish symbolises prosperity, while poon choi – a many-layered dish originating in the villages of the New Territories, where families would throw whatever food they had into one communal pot – perfectly showcases togetherness in every bite, with ingredients ranging from charred pork to oysters and bamboo shoots.

Tong yuen, squishy little rice flour balls filled with peanut, red bean paste or chocolate, offer a sweeter way to celebrate unity, and can be found everywhere from longstanding dessert shops to Hong Kong’s constellation of Michelin-starred restaurants.Making it even easier to negotiate Hong Kong’s rich and varied culinary scene, this year sees the launch of Taste Hong Kong, a curated guide with 250 restaurant recommendations from over 50 local master chefs and Chinese Culinary Institute graduates, organised by neighbourhood. It’s all about hou mei – the Cantonese expression for ‘delicious flavours’ – and the tastes and traditions worthy of celebration, at Chinese New Year and beyond.

For more travel inspiration and to plan your trip visit Discover Hong Kong

Jacob Elordi would make a brilliant Bond

Pick a Bond, any Bond. You could have Sensitive Bond (James Norton), Bridgerton Bond (Regé-Jean Page), Superman Bond (Henry Cavill), Should-have-been Bond (Idris Elba), Pine-effect Bond (Tom Hiddleston)… Yep, ever since Daniel Craig said in 2015 he’d rather slash his wrists than play 007 again – and especially in the five years since No Time to Die ended his tenure – the pack has been shuffled and reshuffled as often as the blackjack cards in Casino Royale. Six months ago, it was definitely Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Just a few weeks ago, it was Callum Turner, apparently nailed on. Now reports suggest man-of-the-moment Jacob Elordi has met with director Denis Villeneuve and Amazon executives for Bond 26. Suddenly, the Australian looks like the frontrunner.

Let’s call him Heathcliff Bond. His latest film, Wuthering Heights, has just stormed to No 1 at the global box office with $82m in its opening weekend – the biggest worldwide debut of the year, and a timely fillip to his 007 credentials. The Oscar-nominated star of Euphoria, Saltburn, Priscilla, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is demonstrably bankable – more so, certainly, than Turner. If Elordi can sell toxic Brontë passion to multiplexes, he can sell Bond. Easily.

Amazon MGM, now holding the franchise reins after powerhouse producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson stepped back, has already pulled off a big coup, appointing Dune director Villeneuve, with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight writing the screenplay. But the final piece will be the most vital.

These things follow a familiar pattern: a rumour surfaces, the bookmakers pile in, the internet goes into meltdown, and overnight an actor finds himself auditioning in the court of public opinion whether he likes it or not.

Elordi wouldn’t be the first Australian to don the tuxedo. George Lazenby played Bond in the brilliant On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While he was a disastrously vapid Bond, Lazenby’s physical presence – unlike Roger Moore’s – makes him one of the few Bonds who looks like he might actually win those set-piece fights. And his failure certainly wasn’t about his nationality – it was about his inability to convey the darkness beneath the dinner jacket.

Elordi wouldn’t have that problem. His Heathcliff shows that. And at 28 years old and towering at 6ft 5in, he would become not just the youngest Bond ever but also the tallest. (Watch yourself, Lazenby.) Of course, there will be a backlash and accusations of a desperate pivot from Amazon towards TikTok demographics. But those doubters might want to revisit what Fleming actually envisioned. His Bond was no avuncular martini-sipper. He was “dark, rather cruel good looks” personified – 6ft tall, slim build, with a three-inch scar on his right cheek. In Fleming’s Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd remarks that he resembles Hoagy Carmichael “but there is something cold and ruthless”. This wasn’t a man you’d want to meet in a dark alley. Fleming wanted a “blunt instrument”, someone who looked capable of murder without a second thought. Elordi fits the template.

When Craig was cast in 2005, after paving the way with the steely gangland thriller Layer Cake, the fallout was vicious – too blonde, too brutish, not suave enough. And yet his tenure redefined Bond entirely, stripping away the winking camp and restoring Fleming’s original conception of a damaged man operating in morally murky territory. Elordi’s potential casting suggests Amazon wants to continue that trajectory rather than retreat into the Roger Moore era of raised eyebrows and double entendres.

What Elordi brings – beyond looking like he could bench-press a Bentley – is danger that seems to flow from somewhere hidden. Fleming’s Bond wasn’t just Eton and expensive tastes. Beneath the urbane veneer was an orphan who’d lost his parents in a climbing accident at 11, a man shaped by violence and loss before he ever put on the dinner jacket. Elordi has rehearsed for this: the thuggish animal magnetism in Euphoria, the roguish Oxbridge-educated charm in Saltburn, the savage outsider clawing his way into gilded respectability in Wuthering Heights. And for something that really demonstrates Elordi’s range, look at his Academy Award-nominated performance in Frankenstein – immensely physical, yes, but also aching with a yearning that lends the Creature’s loss of innocence such poignancy. Bond demands that capacity to move through Mayfair casinos with ease while never losing the edge of someone who doesn’t quite belong.

Drawing heavily from Fleming’s earliest novels, the film is rumoured to explore Bond’s origins – his Royal Navy background, his recruitment into MI6, his journey to becoming a 00 agent. This isn’t Roger Moore arriving fully formed in a safari suit; it’s a chance to trace the making of a cold-blooded assassin. For that, you need an actor who can convey both the seduction of power and its corrosive effect on the soul. Elordi, at 28, has the runway to inhabit the role for a decade or even two, to grow with it as Craig did.

Will it work? What we know is that the films have always been at their best when they’ve gone for the jugular – Connery’s vicious swagger, Dalton’s cold fury, Craig’s brute force. Elordi represents a return to Fleming’s vision of Bond as something even darker and more unsettling – a man who can shift from seduction to violence in the time it takes to mix a Vesper martini. Amazon may well be accused of getting Bond wrong, but Elordi could be just right.

Palestine Action activists face retrial over defence firm break-in

Six Palestine Action activists will face a retrial on criminal damage charges over a break-in at the UK base of an Israel-based defence firm, the CPS has announced.

Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, are all accused over the raid on the Elbit Systems site near Bristol on 6 August 2024.

All six were found not guilty of aggravated burglary at a trial that concluded on 4 February.

Rajwani, Rogers, and Devlin were also acquitted of violent disorder.

However, the jury could not decide on criminal damage charges against the six defendants, as well as allegations of violent disorder against Head, Corner, and Kamio.

Jurors also failed to reach a verdict on a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm against Corner.

At Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC said a retrial would be pursued on all the charges which had not ended in verdicts.

She told Mr Justice Johnson: “As we indicated at the end of the trial, we now confirm the prosecution intention to seek a retrial in respect of all those allegations which no verdict was returned by the jury.

“That is criminal damage against all defendants, the three defendants on the allegation of violent disorder, and with Mr Corner on the allegation of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.”

Ms Heer also told the court that aggravated burglary charges against 18 further defendants who were accused of involvement in the Elbit raid were also now being dropped.

“The prosecution has reconsidered the sufficiency of the evidence,” she said, “and for all the defendants the prosecution offers no evidence on the count of aggravated burglary.”

The 18 further defendants continue to face other allegations over the raid.

After the trial had ended, all the defendants apart from Corner were set free on conditional bail, having spent around 18 months in custody.

The criminal proceedings relate to a 3.30am raid on the Elbit site where Head, a charity worker, is said to have driven a prison van into the perimeter fence and then used the vehicle to get into the factory.

Corner is accused of causing serious injury to Police Sergeant Kate Evans with a sledgehammer.

The six defendants denied all the charges brought against them.

Wednesday’s court hearing took place amid tight security, with at least two dozen police officers positioned around the court building and a heavy presence of court security guards.

Members of the public seeking to watch the court proceedings were initially held outside the court gates by security.