Five Activists Could Be Sentenced as Terrorists for Vandalising a Bank — Here's Why That's Controversial
Five activists from the group Palestine Action have been found guilty of causing £212,000 ($290,000) in damage to a Barclays Bank branch in Burnley, England, in August 2024. Now, a judge must decide whether to treat their crime as having a link to terrorism when sentencing them on September 4. If he does, their punishment could become much more severe — even though Palestine Action was not officially classified as a terrorist group when the activists committed their crime or when they stood trial Al Jazeera.
The five convicted activists are Brendon O'Hagan (28), Amanda Kelly (31), Hmeera Atiqnisar (31), Mohammed Malik (28), and Alma Yaniv (70). The judge who oversaw their trial, Judge Philip Parry, told their lawyers after the verdict that he wanted to explore whether a "terrorist connection" should apply. A different judge, Judge Robert Altham, will make the final decision Al Jazeera.
The controversy is all about timing. When the trial ended, the UK government had not yet banned Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. That means the activists and the jury had no idea that terrorism-related sentencing might come into play. A senior lawyer called the judge's move to consider a terrorist link "unfair" BBC News.
So what happened with the ban? UK lawmakers banned Palestine Action in July 2025. People challenged that ban in court. In February 2026, the High Court ruled the ban was unlawful, noting in its judgment that three Palestine Action activists had broken into a military airbase called RAF Brize Norton Judiciary of England and Wales. That ruling was then overturned on appeal in June 2026 Financial Times. A further judgment published in June 2026 dealt with the challenge to the Home Secretary's decision to ban the group Judiciary of England and Wales.
This is not the first time a UK court has treated Palestine Action members this way at sentencing. In June 2026, four members convicted of criminal damage at an Elbit Systems facility near Bristol were sentenced as terrorists at a court in London called Woolwich Crown Court Al Jazeera.
How does this work under UK law? Normally, criminal damage — like breaking property — carries its own range of possible punishments. But English law has a special tool: a judge can decide that a crime was connected to terrorism, even if the person was never convicted of a terrorism offence. The judge just has to decide it is more likely than not that the crime had a terrorist link, based on the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000. If the judge decides yes, the guidelines push the sentence upward.
The broader context here is about applying rules after the fact. The activists committed their crime and went through their trial while Palestine Action was still a legal organisation. The terrorism sentencing idea comes from a ban that was put in place only after their trial was over. So the defendants could face punishments based on a label that did not apply to their group when they actually did what they did. The June 2026 Woolwich case shows that courts are willing to apply this approach retroactively — meaning backwards — to Palestine Action cases.
That approach links the ban on Palestine Action to how its members are punished across different court cases. It also shrinks the gap between belonging to a group called terrorist and being punished as a terrorist for things you did before that label existed. The September 4 sentencing at Preston Crown Court will show how far this approach goes in the Burnley case.
