Shipley Yorkshire: Four arrests after pro-Palestine protest at Teledyne

The Teledyne works is a few miles outside Bradford. An area which used to be an industrial powerhouse, but where now the textile Mills are closed and converted to an arts centre (Salts Mill, famous for it’s Hockney exhibition) or flats. Teledyne is expanding, providing much needed manufacturing jobs. I feel strongly about the decline of British manufacturing; proper jobs, making proper stuff. Teledyne make electronic components for radar and satelites, the protestors claim these are used in Israeli missiles.  So seeing these jokers  jeopardising the living of working folk on X last night made me extra angry, beyond their misguided cause. 

At last the story has reached the local newspaper the Telegraph and Argus. 

FOUR arrests have been made following a pro-Palestine rooftop protest at a Bradford district firm.

Police were called to Teledyne, at the Acorn Park Industrial Estate in Shipley, at around 5am on Tuesday.

Four protestors from Palestine Action had scaled the roof of a building at the premises.

A group of people gathered outside the area and were waving flags and placards, as well as unfurling banners and chanting in support of Palestine. A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said this morning that four people were “safely brought down from the roof” at 9.38pm and then arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage. The force added that criminal offending at protests “is not tolerated”.

The protest provoked a huge response from emergency services, with a cordon put in place near the entrance of the premises. Members of the emergency services were spotted using a West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service aerial unit later in the day.

The police statement said: “Following a policing operation four persons were safely brought down from the roof of premises at the Acorn Park Industrial Estate in Shipley at about 9.38pm yesterday (Tuesday). All four were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and are now in police custody.  Criminal offending at any such demonstration is not tolerated and any suspected criminal offences which may have taken place will be fully investigated.”

Palestine Action is still on the roof of Teledyne’s weapons factory in Shipley, halting the export of arms to the zionist entity #StopArmingGenocide pic.twitter.com/Wdw8sbdoV6

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) April 2, 2024

I loved the comment to the Palestinian Action tweet and photograph celebrating this criminal damage “Diddlers on the Roof”