Four Palestine Action activists were convicted after a retrial over a break-in at Elbit Systems UK’s site near Bristol, a case that could now carry terrorism-linked sentencing consequences even though the jury was never told that issue existed.
Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were found guilty at Woolwich crown court last week of criminal damage over the 2024 protest at the Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK site. Reporting restrictions were lifted on Tuesday, allowing it to be revealed that Mr Justice Johnson had already ruled in March 2025 that there appeared to be a terrorist connection to the offences.
The ruling was kept from jurors in both trials. Johnson also decided on 21 April that the defendants could not tell the court about their reasons for joining Palestine Action, their beliefs about Elbit’s supply of weapons to Israel for use in the war in Gaza, their views on Israel’s actions in Gaza or the legality of those actions, or anything beyond an intention to destroy property. The result was a retrial in which the central sentencing question remained outside the jury’s reach.
That question matters because the difference is stark. At sentencing, the court will make a separate determination under the criminal standard of proof on whether there was a terrorism connection. If it finds one, the four would have to serve their whole sentence in prison unless a parole board approved release after two-thirds of the sentence. Without that finding, non-terrorist prisoners usually serve 40% of their sentence. A terrorism finding could also leave the defendants recorded as terrorists for life, with the police able to require them to register a new device, bank account, email address or relationship, and return them to prison if they fail to comply or make a mistake.
Johnson said he accepted that damaging weapons and saving lives was one motivating factor, but that another purpose may have been to damage property and influence the Israeli government. In a statement after the verdict, a Defend Our Juries spokesperson said the public would be astonished that a protester could be convicted of criminal damage for disrupting an arms factory and then be sentenced as a terrorist without terror charges and with that kept from the jury.
The case sits at the sharp edge of an unusual legal path: four activists convicted only of criminal damage, yet facing the possibility of penalties reserved for terrorism. What happens at sentencing will decide whether the court treats the Bristol break-in as vandalism with political motives, or as something the law says was meant to go further.
