Four Palestine Action activists may this week become the first protesters sentenced as terrorists in Britain – a decision that their supporters told openDemocracy would be an unprecedented escalation in the UK’s crackdown on Palestine solidarity movements.
Lottie Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Ellie Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were last month found guilty of criminal damage after breaking into a site belonging to the UK branch of Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems in August 2024 and damaging equipment, including drones and computer systems. Corner was also convicted of grievous bodily harm over an injury a police officer sustained during the incident.
In England and Wales, you do not need to be convicted of a terrorism offence to be sentenced as a terrorist. A court can find that an ordinary criminal offence meets the definition of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000 – a broad definition that includes serious damage to property carried out for a political or ideological cause, where one purpose is to influence a government.
That fact has caused alarm in this case, particularly since Palestine Action was not proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government until July 2025 – almost a year after the protest took place. Despite this, the judge presiding over the hearing, Justice Johnson, ruled that there appeared to be a “terrorist connection” ahead of the trial, but said this could not be disclosed to the jury. Jurors were unaware that finding the activists guilty of criminal damage could lead to them being sentenced as terrorists.
If the court decides to make the terrorism connection at the sentencing on Friday, the activists will serve their whole sentence in prison, unless a parole board approves their release after they complete at least 66% of their sentence. Non-terrorist prisoners usually serve 40% of their sentence.
Even after their release, the defendants may be recorded as terrorists for life. They would have to register any new device, bank account, telephone number, email address, vehicle, relationship and overseas travel plans with the police for the rest of their lives. Failing to comply with these rules, or making a mistake in how they comply, could mean they are returned to prison.
“This is the first time that the terrorism link has been used on a criminal damage case, and the first time that protesters could be sentenced as terrorists in Britain,” an official representative of the Filton Defence Campaign, a Palestine solidarity support group formed around the activists prosecuted after the direct action, told openDemocracy.
The representative said they had “just come off the phone” with one of the prisoners, who described the pressure of awaiting sentence as overwhelming, telling them: “The stress is unbearable sometimes, the uncertainty is endless, and the burden of the fight is exhausting.”
Their families and partners, they said, are “dealing with it differently”, but have become “a very strong community” and remain “resolute… in their convictions and integrity”. One mother told the campaign that “it would be an honour for anyone to be in her daughter’s position”.
The representative told openDemocracy that “the British state ensured that the process itself was the punishment”, adding that the defendants have already spent many months in prison.
The four activists are part of a group known as the Filton 24, named after Elbit UK’s Filton site, near Bristol, where they protested. Of the 24 people charged over the August 2024 action, six were initially tried and acquitted of aggravated burglary in February this year. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the criminal damage charges – leading to the current retrial, in which two of the six activists were found not guilty. Prosecutors have since dropped the aggravated burglary charge against the remaining 18.
During the retrial, the defendants were barred from explaining the wider political context of their action. According to the Guardian, they could not discuss their opposition to Elbit, the war in Gaza or their stated intention to prevent harm. Outside the court, supporters holding placards about jury rights were arrested.
The case sits uneasily within the wider legal battle over Palestine Action. In February, the High Court ruled that the government’s decision to proscribe the group had been unlawful, finding that the home secretary had failed to apply government policy properly and had breached rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
The ruling does not mean that every Palestine Action protest was lawful. The court accepted that some Palestine Action activity could fall within the broad statutory definition of terrorism, but found that proscribing the whole organisation was disproportionate. The government appealed, leaving the legal effect of the ruling contested. That makes the Filton sentencing all the more significant.
Artists’ open letter
Public concern has spread beyond the immediate Palestine solidarity movement. An open letter coordinated by Artists for Palestine UK and signed by around 100 public figures, including Sally Rooney, Greta Thunberg, Steve Coogan, Zoë Wanamaker, John McDonnell MP, Charlotte Church, Brian Eno and Ken Loach, urged the judge to drop the terrorism connection.
The signatories warned that sentencing the four as terrorists would be an “extremely grave miscarriage of justice”. They stressed that the defendants were not charged with terrorism offences, were not tried under terrorism laws, and that the jury did not convict them of terrorism. The letter argued that their motivations had been excluded from the trial, but could now be used against them at sentencing. It also said their actions “may well have saved lives”.
Charlotte Church put the criticism more sharply, saying: “The courts are lashing out at young people”. The singer argued that those manufacturing weapons for Israel should instead face accountability.
The outrage has also been shaped by months of prison protest. In late 2025, Palestine Action-linked prisoners held on remand in the Filton and RAF Brize Norton cases began a hunger strike over prison conditions, bail, fair trial rights, the proscription of Palestine Action and Elbit Systems’ operations in the UK. UN experts later raised “grave concern” about reports of deteriorating health and the treatment of hunger strikers in custody.
The Filton 24 Defence Campaign says the case has drawn support far beyond the small group who first gathered outside counter-terrorism units after the arrests. “The movement that has grown in support of the Filton 24 has been nothing short of awe-inspiring,” the campaign representative said.
“We went from about 50 people outside Hammersmith Counter Terrorism units in August 2024 demanding their release, to thousands upon thousands mobilising regularly around the country and abroad.”
The implications, campaigners believe, may extend to climate, anti-arms and other direct action movements, but they are wary of framing the case as a generic protest rights issue.
“This could indeed affect other direct action and protest groups,” the campaign representative said, “however, it hasn’t yet affected any cause except the one for Palestinian liberation.” The case, they added, is “another face of Britain’s complicity in the occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its people.”
Palestine solidarity and protest movements
For the Filton defence campaign, the case is about more than four defendants. It is about the state’s response to Palestine solidarity, and the way counter-terrorism powers have been pushed into the realm of protest and direct action.
At the centre of the proposed terrorism connection is the claim that the action sought to influence the Israeli government by restricting access to weapons. The defence campaign believes that argument turns international law upside down.
The action took place months after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The defendants’ defence argues that they acted “in accordance with international law” by destroying equipment they believed was destined for use by the Israeli military. Evidence in court, it says, showed that exports of military equipment were cancelled because of the damage caused.
“Their action was a success,” the campaign representative said.
For the campaign, the danger is that this success is now being treated not as mitigation, but as the basis for a terrorism-linked sentence. “What this particular facet of the ruling suggests,” they said, “is that the genocide doesn’t matter; that it is more terrorist in nature to disrupt a genocidal regime’s military operations than it is to carry out those military operations.”
The defendants and their families will learn on Friday whether the court accepts the terrorism connection. Whatever happens, the campaign believes the case has already marked a dangerous shift in Britain’s treatment of Palestine solidarity. Relaying Lottie’s words to openDemocracy, the campaign’s representative said: “The divine right of kings is alive and well in the British judiciary system.”
