FOUR Palestine Action activists face sentencing today in what would mark the first time protesters have been sentenced as terrorists in British legal history, after being convicted last month of criminal damage at an Elbit Systems facility in Filton.
Lottie Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Ellie Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, broke into the UK site of the Israeli arms manufacturer and damaged equipment including drones and computer systems.
Corner was also convicted of grievous bodily harm over an injury sustained by a police officer during the action.
None of the four were charged with terrorism offences, and the jury that convicted them was not told that a guilty verdict could result in their being sentenced as terrorists.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, serious property damage carried out for political or ideological purposes with the aim of influencing a government can meet the terrorism definition, meaning an ordinary criminal conviction can carry terrorism sentencing consequences.
If the court applies that connection today, the activists will serve their full sentences unless a parole board approves release after completing at least 66%, compared with the 40% threshold for non-terrorist prisoners.
They would also face lifelong registration requirements with police covering devices, bank accounts, travel plans, relationships and more, with any failure to comply potentially returning them to prison.
Palestine Action was not proscribed as a terrorist organisation until July 2025, nearly a year after the protest.
The High Court ruled in February that even that proscription had been unlawful, finding the Home Secretary had failed to apply government policy properly and had breached rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
The government has appealed, leaving the legal position contested.
During the retrial, the defendants were barred from explaining their opposition to Elbit, the genocide in Gaza, or their stated aim of preventing harm.
Supporters holding placards about jury rights were arrested outside court.
A representative of the Filton Defence Campaign said ‘the British state ensured that the process itself was the punishment’, with the defendants already having spent many months on remand.
An open letter signed by around 100 public figures – including Sally Rooney, Greta Thunberg, Ken Loach, Brian Eno and John McDonnell MP – urged the judge to reject the terrorism connection, warning it would constitute an ‘extremely grave miscarriage of justice’ given that the defendants were neither charged with nor tried for terrorism, and that the jury convicted them of no such thing.
Famous singer Charlotte Church said: ‘The courts are lashing out at young people.’
One of the prisoners told the campaign that awaiting the sentence had become overwhelming.
‘The stress is unbearable sometimes, the uncertainty is endless, and the burden of the fight is exhausting,’ they said. One mother told supporters it would be ‘an honour for anyone to be in her daughter’s position’.
The campaign representative said the case was ‘another face of Britain’s complicity in the occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its people’, relaying one defendant’s view that ‘the divine right of kings is alive and well in the British judiciary system’.
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