Five Palestine Action Activists Will Not Be Sentenced as Terrorists for Barclays Branch Damage
A judge has ruled that five Palestine Action activists convicted of causing more than £200,000 in damage to a Barclays branch in Burnley, Lancashire, will not face sentencing under terrorism provisions, closing a chapter that had raised questions about how terrorism enhancements are applied in property-damage cases connected to political protest.
Under the Sentencing Act 2020, a court can find a "terrorist connection" to an offence, which can increase a sentence beyond what the underlying charge would normally carry. Judge Philip Parry had told both prosecution and defence in June 2026 that he intended to consider such a connection, following new information that emerged during the trial. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) — the body responsible for bringing criminal cases in England and Wales — then argued that the five should be sentenced under terrorism provisions, even though prosecutors had not raised the terrorist-connection issue at any earlier stage of the proceedings (The Guardian).
The defendants — Brendon O'Hagan, 28; Amanda Kelly, 31; Hmeera Atiqnisar, 31; Mohammed Malik, 28; and Alma Yaniv, 70 — were found guilty by a jury in June 2026 of causing damage exceeding £200,000 after breaking windows and throwing red paint at the Barclays branch in Burnley in August 2024 (The Guardian). The activists targeted the branch because Barclays held shares in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons firm. Barclays had previously stated that it held the shares only in relation to client-driven transactions and was neither an investor nor a shareholder in the arms company. By October 2024, Barclays had sold all its Elbit shares.
A central procedural feature of the case is that the jury which convicted the five on criminal damage charges was never informed that a terrorist-connection consideration was a possibility. The five defendants themselves said they did not realise their cases might be treated as terrorism until after the guilty verdicts were returned. The CPS's post-conviction push for a terrorism enhancement thus operated entirely outside the jury's awareness, raising structural questions about when and how terrorist-connection findings are introduced under the Sentencing Act 2020.
The broader context here is the government's treatment of Palestine Action as an organisation. A final open judgment in the case Ammori v SSHD, published by the Judiciary of England and Wales on June 15, 2026, repeated the Proscription Review Group's (PRG) unanimous agreement that Palestine Action was "currently concerned in terrorism" (Judiciary of England and Wales). An earlier version of the judgment, published on February 13, 2026, noted that if passed, legislation would make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action (Judiciary of England and Wales).
That proscription framework — a legal ban on belonging to or supporting a group — sits in the background of the Barclays five case, even though Judge Parry's sentencing decision has now drawn a line under the terrorism enhancement for these specific defendants. The tension is evident: the PRG assessed the organisation as concerned in terrorism, while a sentencing court examined the conduct of five individual members and declined to apply a terrorist connection. These are not formally contradictory findings, since the PRG's organisational assessment and a judge's individual sentencing determination operate under different legal standards and serve different purposes. But they point in divergent directions for an organisation facing prospective proscription.
The CPS's decision to seek a terrorism enhancement only after conviction, without having flagged the issue during the trial itself, is the element most likely to attract scrutiny from criminal practitioners. Think of it as a prosecutor waiting until after a jury has reached its verdict to argue that the case should have been treated differently all along — except the jury never knew that was on the table. The fact that neither the jury nor the defendants were aware this was in play until after verdicts raises due-process questions — questions about whether legal proceedings are conducted fairly and with proper notice — that go beyond the specifics of this case. Defence counsel for the five argued that the post-conviction introduction of the terrorism consideration was procedurally unfair.
Barclays' divestment from Elbit Systems shares, completed by October 2024, means the conduct the five were convicted for targeted a holding the bank no longer maintains. That does not retroactively change the legal characterisation of the August 2024 actions. But it does shape the backdrop: the object of the protest has since been removed by the target institution itself, while the legal consequences for the protesters have continued to escalate through the courts.
The five will now be sentenced on the criminal damage convictions without the terrorism enhancement. The sentencing hearing has not yet concluded, and the specific penalties remain to be determined.
