Grace Lally is arrested for chalking on the road outside one of General Dynamics’ factories in St Leonards, 3 July 2025. Photo: Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Childcare worker arrested and held for seven hours for writing on ground in chalk at protest

Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity campaign’s Katy Colley reports on the latest arrest in the campaign against General Dynamics – a major supplier of arms to Israel, with local factories in St Leonards.

Hastings resident Grace Lally (46) was arrested on Thursday July 3 outside General Dynamics’ arms factory in Hastings, for causing ‘criminal damage’ by writing with chalk on the ground outside the factory.

Ms Lally was subsequently held at Hastings police station for seven hours and interviewed by police before being released on police bail pending further investigation.

‘Criminal damage with a rock’

Speaking on her release to campaigners who had set up a solidarity camp outside the station, childminder Grace said Sussex police were investigating her for causing ‘criminal damage with a rock’ and had suggested to her that General Dynamics might need to ‘retarmac’ the road because of the damage from her writing on it in chalk.

Organised by the Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HDPSC), the protest was advertised as calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and in solidarity with Palestine Action – a  group targeting Israeli arms company Elbit systems through nonviolent direct action – on the eve of the Government’s new law coming into force, designating Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Grace was pictured holding a sign that read ‘We are all Palestine Action’ before she began to write ‘Stop Arms to Israel’ and ‘Stop Genocide’ in chalk on the ground outside General Dynamics.

Four police officers watch Grace Lally write on the road in chalk during a protest outside one of General Dynamics’ factories in St Leonards, 3 July 2025. Photo: Hastings & District PSC

The Chalker One?

Writing on her Facebook page after the arrest Ms Lally said: ‘I was arrested for writing protest slogans in chalk but people should know that the police were there before we arrived for our peaceful protest, with two vans and two police cars, with the express intention to frighten and intimidate us, on the direct request of General Dynamics who told police they “cannot tolerate chalk”. This is what policing to protect genocide profiteers looks like. Lucky I’m a childcare worker and tools of my trade are pavement chalks!!!’

The violent arrest of one of our members for writing chalk slogans on the road was a disgraceful display of excessive and inappropriate force at a peaceful protest.

This is another example of repressive police tactics to deter our solidarity actions with the Palestinian people in Gaza. But it won’t work. It didn’t work with the Hastings Three, who were all found innocent in January of the trumped up charges against them, and it won’t work with the Chalker One.

We have protested at General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics over 20 times since Israel’s genocide in Gaza started and we will keep protesting at their Hastings sites as long as they continue to arm the apartheid Israeli state.

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