The New Dark Age

Thursday, 14 May 2026 — Declassified UK

Four Palestine Action activists convicted in a retrial over a protest at a UK site owned by Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer could be sentenced as terrorists.

No case in British legal history has seen direct action activists sentenced under terrorism provisions – until now.

In an unprecedented move in a criminal damage case, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) submitted to the court that there was a “terrorist connection” to the case- even though the incident took place before Palestine Action was proscribed.

Crucially, this ruling was kept secret from the jury, a restriction which continued into the retrial.

Jurors subsequently convicted Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, of criminal damage last week, after they raided an Elbit Systems facility near Bristol in August 2024 and damaged quadcopter drones. Two co-defendants were cleared.

All six had been acquitted of the more serious charges of aggravated burglary and violent disorder back in February, but the CPS sought a retrial.

We couldn’t tell you about these key developments until this week with reporting restrictions only lifted on Tuesday.

The ramifications are grave.

If a terrorism connection is found by the court, their sentences will be aggravated, meaning they will be given much longer prison sentences than others convicted of the same crimes.

It would also require the four activists to serve their full sentences unless a parole board is satisfied they have “reformed” their beliefs after serving at least two-thirds of their sentence.

That’s a deeply troubling threshold, especially considering that most non-terrorist offenders typically serve less than half of their sentences. And in this case, the defendants have already served up to 18 months on remand.

And even after release, they risk being recorded as terrorists for life, meaning they could face permanent surveillance obligations: registering every device, bank account, email and personal relationship with police, with the prospect of re-imprisonment for any lapse or error.

Reacting to the revelation, Defend Our Juries noted: “The public will be astonished that a protester can be convicted of criminal damage, sentenced as a terrorist – without a terror conviction – and that this was kept secret from the jury”.

And this dangerous application of a far-reaching law appears to be confined exclusively to Palestine Action – as opposed to rioters, largely instigated by far-right groups, who caused widespread criminal damage and threatened refugees in hotels across England in 2024.

It is a pattern that will not be lost on those who are watching civil liberties quietly erode in Britain.