One of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers has said the potential sentencing of four Palestine Action protesters as terrorists when the jury did not convict them of a terrorism offence violates fundamental legal principles.
Michael Mansfield KC, known for his work on landmark cases such as the Grenfell Tower fire, Stephen Lawrence and the Birmingham Six, claimed the sentencing of Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21 represents a “constitutional threat”.
Last month, they were found guilty of criminal damage over a 2024 break in at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK site. On Friday, the trial judge, Mr Justice Johnson, will decide whether there was a terrorism connection to their offence – which would mean a harsher sentence – despite the jury never having been told of this possibility.
Mansfield is the highest-profile signatory of an open letter signed by more than 50 lawyers and legal experts warning that such a finding would be “wrong in principle”.
“It’s a recategorising the offence without a trial,” he said. “It’s particularly insidious for the obvious reason that they weren’t allowed to explain their motivation to a jury – that was denied them. And yet the state says ‘we’re actually going to elevate what the offences are’ when a jury might well not have convicted had they known they were going to be treated as terrorists.
“The fundamental principle is you should not be convicted on any statutory offence for which you have not been charged.”
As well as harsher sentences, if Johnson finds a terrorist connection, the four, who smashed up drones and other equipment at the Elbit Systems UK factory near Bristol, would serve a greater proportion of their sentence in prison than normal and have to notify police for life about certain changes in their personal circumstances.
Highlighting examples from the suffragettes and the women of Greenham Common to Extinction Rebellion and the Trident Ploughshares movement, the letter said: “Blurring the distinction between principled direct action and terrorism is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes.”
Another signatory, Penny Green, professor of law and globalisation at Queen Mary University of London, said: “It is beyond shocking that acts of criminal damage, designed to prevent the mass killing of Palestinians by Israel, are treated by the British state as acts of terror. The question we now have to ask is why British justice has been so demeaned and distorted as to stand in defence of the perpetrators of genocide.”
A judicial spokesperson said: “Judicial independence and impartiality are fundamental to the rule of law. Upon taking office, judges take the judicial oath where they swear to act ‘without fear or favour, affection or ill will’. In each case, judges make decisions based on the evidence and arguments presented to them and apply the law as it stands.”
“Judges and magistrates sentence according to the law set by parliament and the sentencing guidelines set by the independent Sentencing Council, as well as the facts of each case which may have aggravating or mitigating factors.”
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