Smash EDO protesters have explained their opposition to a factory in court.

Jessica Nero and Gavin Pidwell deny a charge of disrupting workers in their lawful activity by glueing and locking themselves to the gates of the EDO factory in Home Farm Road, Moulsecoomb.

They described their campaign aims and belief that the company makes illegal arms at Brighton Magistrates’ Court yesterday (August 2).

Asked how she wanted the closure of EDO to come about, Nero said: “Through the exposure of their policies, their illegal policies.

“I guess if enough bad publicity comes out about the work they are conducting, I would hope it would be a knock-on effect.'”

Under cross-examination she told Brian Noel, prosecuting, she thought the company should be prosecuted if it broke the law.

She said: “Dossiers have been passed to Sussex Police in the past and they have not been investigated.”

Mr Noel said: “Sussex Police have failed in their duty, would you say that?”

She said: “I guess you could say that.”

Nero, 35, of Graham Road, Mitcham, and Pidwell, 26, of no fixed address, deny aggravated trespass on the grounds that the company’s activity is not lawful.

On Wednesday, August 1, EDO’s managing director, Paul Hills , told the court the company did not make technology for cluster bombs – single bombs which release smaller bombs when they go off, and which are banned in the UK.

Nero told Victoria Kerly, defending, that she believed cables made and promoted by the factory were sold to the US for use with cluster bombs.

She said: “It would make no sense to me for America to buy those from EDO if they were told they could not use them for this essential part of their arsenal.”

Pidwell said he did not believe Mr Hills’s evidence.

Mr Noel said: “I put it to you that EDO have always operated within the terms of the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Act 2010.”

Pidwell said: “I do not agree with that.”

The case is due to continue at the same court on August 23.