Palestine Action Activists Could Be Sentenced as 'Terrorists' Over £212,000 Barclays Bank Damage

Red paint and broken glass could now cost five Palestinian activists a terrorist label — and years behind bars. A judge is weighing branding them terrorists for a Barclays bank protest, despite the charge never once being mentioned during their trial.

Brendon O'Hagan, Amanda Kelly, Hmeera Atiqnisar, Mohammed Malik and Alma Yaniv were convicted over £212,000 of damage at a Lancashire branch in 2024, smashing windows and hurling paint to protest the bank's ties to Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems. Now they face being sentenced under the same terrorism laws used against bombers and hijackers.

A Terror Charge Raised After the Verdict

What makes the case extraordinary is timing. Judge Philip Parry has told prosecutors he is considering a terrorist connection, yet the possibility was never put to the jury and never disclosed to the defendants while they were building their case. They were tried, and convicted, without ever knowing this label was on the table.

Parry has pointed to a separate case involving four other Palestine Action activists — Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani and Samuel Corner — jailed last month over an attack on an Israeli arms manufacturer's UK factory.

Justice Johnson ruled in that case, known as the Filton case, that a terrorist connection applied, handing down lengthy custodial sentences. Parry has now attached Johnson's judgment to his own request for legal submissions on whether the same applies to the Barclays five.

Malik called the move an overreach. 'The judge and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] are now seeking to sentence us as terrorists for red paint and a few splintered windows. This goes far beyond the charges before the court and raises serious concerns about the increasing use of counter-terrorism legislation to persecute political dissent,' he said. He warned the Filton ruling risked becoming a template for handling political dissent more broadly.

The Barclays protest took place before Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation, and was never assessed by the Home Secretary or officials as a terrorism incident at the time.

The CPS's position is more measured than it might first appear. Prosecutors have stressed they did not raise the terrorist connection before or during the trial — it only surfaced afterwards, through the defendants' own admissions on the stand, including their acknowledged links to Palestine Action and confirmation that the protest was part of a wider, co-ordinated campaign against Barclays. In effect, the CPS argues the defendants' own testimony is what opened the door, not a decision made against them in advance.

What a Terrorist Sentence Would Actually Mean

The stakes go well beyond a longer prison term. A terrorist sentencing means serving at least two-thirds of the tariff behind bars, far above the norm, and living under 15 years of terrorist notification requirements on release — reporting any new device, relationship, bank account or address to police. Most strikingly, to even secure parole, defendants must rescind their political views, as was required in the Filton case.

Critics say that bar alone shows how far the law has strayed from its intended target. Liberty director Akiko Hart said the case exposed 'the deep flaws' in legislation that 'capture activity most people would never consider terrorism', warning that 'the line between direct action and terrorism is becoming dangerously blurred'. Labour MP John McDonnell went further, calling it a practice 'specifically targeted to silence the voices of people speaking out against the genocide in Gaza'.

By contrast, seven Extinction Rebellion protesters received suspended sentences for causing more than £100,000 of damage at Barclays' London headquarters in 2023, with no terrorist connection ever applied.

Barclays sold off all its Elbit shares by October 2024, maintaining it never held them as an investor and that they were linked solely to client-driven transactions.

Sentencing in the Burnley case is set for 4 September. The CPS and judiciary declined to comment.