Pleased About a Fractured Spine: The Polanski Paradox.
Or: When Britain's political (aka idiot) class learned to stop worrying and love the sledgehammer.
Remember Locke and people losing their shit? About respecting autonomous choices instead of making them your performance art?
Well, Zack Polanski just combined both in one tweet that deserves an award for tone-deaf political theatre.
February 4th, 2026. Six Palestine Action activists walk free on aggravated burglary after a Bristol factory raid where a female police officer got her spine fractured by sledgehammer blows.
Polanski - Green Party Leader, London Assembly Member - tweets: “Pleased to see the jury make this decision.”
Pleased.
Let me tell you what he left out.
What Actually Happened.
August 6th, 2024. Early hours. Filton, near Bristol.
Six Palestine Action members ram a prison van through the perimeter fence of an Elbit Systems facility. They use it as a “battering ram” to get inside. Red boiler suits. Sledgehammers. Twenty minutes they later called “the craziest of my life.”
Police Sergeant Kate Evans arrives. She’s on her knees, trying to arrest one of the activists. Struggling with handcuffs that keep catching on the red boiler suit.
She looks up. Her colleague has “this shocked face on him.”
Then: pain.
Samuel Corner, 23, allegedly strikes her twice across the lower back with a sledgehammer. While she’s kneeling.
Evans testified: “My head’s thinking my spine is shattered at this point.”
It wasn’t shattered. Just fractured.
What that actually meant:
Fractured lumbar vertebra
Three months off work
Couldn’t drive, shower, or dress herself
Ongoing chronic pain (lower back, right hip, leg)
Still on restricted duties
Still not back to normal duties as of February 2026
You know what a “no verdict” is? It’s what juries say when they mean “we can’t agree if hitting a kneeling woman with a sledgehammer twice is bad enough to be GBH.”
Let that sink in. Twice. While she’s on her knees. And they couldn’t decide.
PC Aaron Buxton also testified Corner swung the sledgehammer at him “multiple times” - made contact with his calf and radio. He was “scared” because he didn’t know how many swings were coming.
Security guards got sledgehammers swung at them, got whipped, got sprayed with fire extinguishers.
But Polanski’s pleased.
The Verdict (And The Posters).
After 36+ hours of deliberation:
Acquitted: All six on aggravated burglary
Acquitted: Three on violent disorder
No verdict: Criminal damage (all six)
No verdict: Violent disorder (three including Corner)
No verdict: GBH with intent (Corner for the spine attack)
Here’s where it gets properly mental.
During jury deliberations, posters appeared on bus stops and lampposts near the courthouse:
“The jury decide not the judge”
“Jury equity is when a jury acquits someone on moral grounds”
“Jurors can give a not guilty verdict even when they believe a defendant has broken the law”
Police kept taking them down. They kept reappearing.
The judge told the jury to ignore “anything that happens outside court” and return verdicts based on evidence, not conscience.
The posters kept going up.
Six people walked free on the main charge despite admitting property destruction (five of them), despite video evidence, despite a fractured spine, despite testimony from multiple officers.
And Polanski’s pleased.
Who’s This Bloke?
2016: Lib Dem candidate, Clegg’s centrist wing
2018: Anti-Corbyn (”As pro-European and a Jew, two reasons to oppose him”), pro-IHRA
2020: Backs IHRA for Greens (”solidarity with Jewish communities”)
2025: Green Leader (85%), now non-Zionist, calls Board of Deputies “Israeli Government’s board”
Oct 2025: UK government “active participant in murdering Palestinians”, MPs who proscribed Palestine Action should “hang heads in shame.”
Feb 2026: “Pleased”
And who benefits from this journey? A man who went from failed Lib Dem candidate to Green Party Leader (85%) by positioning perfectly for each audience. The verdict gives him another opportunity: champion activists whilst Labour cracks down. Perfect for building a left-wing alternative.
Kate Evans’ fractured spine is just useful context.
The Mathematical Problem.
You know what social contract means? Same rules for everyone.
The facts: Woman kneeling, doing her job. Two sledgehammer blows to spine. Three months unable to shower/dress/drive. Ongoing chronic pain. Video evidence exists. Jury can’t decide if it’s GBH. Mysterious posters told them to ignore law, acquit on “moral grounds.”
Polanski’s response: “Pleased.”
Notice what’s missing from that tweet. Not just Kate Evans’ name. Not just her fractured spine.
What’s missing is any acknowledgment this outcome might be complicated. That a hung jury on GBH might warrant concern rather than celebration.
The absence speaks louder than “pleased” ever could.
Which decision is he pleased about? The one where they couldn’t decide if fracturing a kneeling police officer’s spine is GBH? Or the one where they cleared people of planning violence despite bringing sledgehammers to a factory raid?
This stopped being about Palestine the second the sledgehammer made contact. That’s just physics.
And it happened at Elbit Systems in Filton - basically Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police responded. The same city whose Green Party currently runs the place whilst ignoring 54% resident opposition to their schemes. Same national party Polanski leads. Connect the dots.
What Kate Evans Got.
No Early Day Motion. No vigil. No MPs campaigning. No political leaders expressing concern. No acknowledgment from those celebrating her alleged attacker’s partial acquittal.
She got chronic pain, permanent disability, inability to perform basic functions - and Zack Polanski’s “pleased.”
In Polanski’s moral universe, Kate Evans is scenery. Background. Collateral. Not even worthy of mention in his victory tweet.
She’s invisible.
What This Means for Bristol.
Small actions at sensitive points create disproportionate consequences.
Jury equity posters during deliberations. Six people walk free on aggravated burglary despite fractured spine. Hung jury on GBH.
Now every Palestine Action member in Bristol knows: posters work, political leaders celebrate, and you might walk even if you fracture someone’s spine.
Palestine Action already escalated to damaging military aircraft (March 2025), got proscribed as terrorists (July 2025). Their members just walked on aggravated burglary despite sledgehammers and a fractured spine.
What’s next? Because there’s always a next escalation when the previous one worked.
The Questions.
Would Polanski be “pleased” if this was a Reform UK supporter who fractured a pro-Palestine protester’s spine with a sledgehammer, then walked free because right-wing jury equity posters told jurors to acquit on moral grounds?
If Kate Evans is permanently disabled and nobody in the political class gives a shit, what message does that send every other officer asked to respond to “peaceful protests” in Bristol?
We both know the answers.
The Three Questions.
Is it practical? Celebrating violence against police when committed for your cause? No. It guarantees escalation and undermines any claim to moral authority.
Is it logical? Being pleased about an outcome where a fractured spine gets no justice whilst jury equity posters contaminate deliberations? No. It’s tribal cheerleading masquerading as principle.
What’s the likely outcome? Palestine Action escalates further, knowing political leaders will celebrate regardless of who gets hurt. Avon and Somerset Police lose trust in the system protecting them. Bristol public loses faith in equal justice. And Zack Polanski gets to feel righteous whilst Kate Evans takes painkillers.
The Verdict.
Kate Evans just wants to shower without help.
She gets chronic pain, restricted duties, and Zack Polanski’s “pleased.”
Welcome to Britain’s political class in 2026, where “pleased” means a fractured spine and the woman who got hit is too inconvenient to mention.
Bristol, your Green Party leader just told you everything you need to know.
Kate Evans is still taking painkillers.
Polanski is still pleased.
Britain, 2026.
Sources
Woolwich Crown Court trial proceedings (November 2025 - February 2026)
Medical evidence: PS Kate Evans fractured lumbar vertebra, three months disability
Body-worn camera footage (presented as evidence)
Testimony: PS Evans, PC Peter Adams, PC Aaron Buxton
Jury equity posters confirmed by prosecution
Zack Polanski tweet, February 4th, 2026
Palestine Action timeline: August 2024 (Bristol), March 2025 (Brize Norton), July 2025 (proscribed)