Barclays 5 avoid terror sentencing
A judge ruled the Barclays 5 will not face terror sentencing for a 2024 Elbit-linked protest, but the door to future terrorism charges stays open.
Five Palestine solidarity activists who smashed windows at a Barclays branch over the bank’s links to an Israeli arms firm will not be sentenced as terrorists, a judge ruled at Preston Crown Court on 21 August. The Barclays 5 terror sentencing decision spares Brendon O’Hagan, Amanda Kelly, Mohammed Malik, Hmeera Atiqnisar and Alma Yaniv the prospect of years in prison under a law built for bombers, not protesters with paint.
Judge Robert Altham found the £212,805 of damage the five caused at the Burnley branch in August 2024, though “significant,” did not meet the statutory threshold for “serious damage” needed to attach a terrorist connection to their sentence. Outside court, where roughly 200 supporters had gathered with drums and placards, Atiqnisar, 31, said the fight was not won in courtrooms but in stopping the arms trade itself: “We are victorious when we silence the drones before they occupy the skies of Gaza and before they turn Palestinian men, women and children into pieces.”
Barclays 5 terror sentencing: why the charge was even possible That the question arose is itself the story. The five were convicted of ordinary criminal damage in June, over an action that took place a year before Palestine Action was proscribed. Only after the jury delivered its verdict did the Crown Prosecution Service ask the court to consider sentencing them as terrorists, a move neither the jury nor the defendants knew was possible while the trial was under way.
The bank they targeted was, at the time, providing loan and investment facilities to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, a fact the prosecution itself did not dispute. Barclays sold its entire Elbit shareholding by the end of October 2024, after more than 50 Palestine Action protests at its branches; the bank says the sale had nothing to do with the campaign. Nine months later, the government moved to settle the argument by other means. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed Palestine Action in July 2025, making membership or support a criminal offence and clearing the way for prosecutors to reach for terrorism law against direct-action protesters.
The precedent Preston didn’t overturn
That reach had already succeeded once. In May 2026, four Palestine Action activists convicted over a break-in at an Elbit factory in Filton were sentenced under a terrorist connection a judge had secretly ruled applied a year earlier, without telling the jury. Samuel Corner got eight years and eight months; Charlotte Head and Leona Kamio each got just under six years; Fatema Rajwani got five years and eight months. It was the first time in British legal history that protesters convicted only of criminal damage had been sentenced as terrorists.
That ruling stands untouched by what happened in Preston. CAGE International’s Anas Mustapha welcomed the outcome for the Barclays 5 but warned the judge’s reasoning “leaves the door open”: Altham ruled on the size of the damage bill, not on whether the CPS’s tactic of seeking a terrorism connection after conviction was fair to begin with. Liberty’s Ruth Ehrlich went further, warning that jurors and defendants going into trial with no idea a terrorism sentence could follow “highlights deep flaws in the UK’s laws.”
What happens next
The Barclays 5 will be sentenced on the criminal damage conviction alone on 4 September, most likely facing community orders or short custodial terms rather than the terrorism tariff that put the Filton Four away for a combined 26 years. That case remains under appeal, and the wider legal fight, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori’s Supreme Court challenge to the proscription itself, is not due to be heard until the final quarter of 2026. Until then, the law that let prosecutors ask a judge to call the Barclays 5 terrorists remains fully intact, waiting for a case with a bigger damage bill.
