The ‘Barclays five’ outside Preston crown court on Friday, (l-r) Mohammed Malik, Alma Yaniv, Hmeera Atiqnisar, Amanda Kelly and Brendon O’Hagan. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian View image in fullscreen The ‘Barclays five’ outside Preston crown court on Friday, (l-r) Mohammed Malik, Alma Yaniv, Hmeera Atiqnisar, Amanda Kelly and Brendon O’Hagan. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian Palestine Action Palestine Action ‘Barclays five’ will not be sentenced as terrorists Activists who targeted bank in Burnley were found guilty in June of causing damage exceeding £200,000
Prefer the Guardian on Google Five Palestine Action activists who vandalised a Barclays branch in Burnley will not be sentenced as terrorists, a judge has ruled.
Dubbed the Barclays five, Brendon O’Hagan, 28; Amanda Kelly, 31; Hmeera Atiqnisar, 31; Mohammed Malik, 28; and Alma Yaniv, 70, were all found guilty in June of causing damage exceeding £200,000, after breaking windows and throwing red paint at a branch of Barclays Bank in Lancashire in August 2024.
The group targeted the site in protest at Barclays because it held shares in the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems.
Judge Altham, the recorder of Preston, ruled on Friday that while the damage was substantial, it was not of the size of other attacks or against a sensitive property, such as an arms company, as has happened in previous Palestine Action incidents, and thus did not meet the high threshold for a terrorist sentencing.
All five will still be sentenced next month for criminal damage, but will face shorter jail terms as a result of the ruling.
View image in fullscreen Supporters outside Preston crown court before the ruling. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian After the five activists were found guilty in June, the trial judge, Philip Parry, told the prosecution and the defence he intended to consider a “terrorist connection” to the offending. It is understood this was a result of new information coming to light during the trial.
Neither the five activists nor the jury that found them guilty of criminal charges were aware that the case would be considered as terrorism until after they were found guilty.
During the hearings that took place at Preston crown court on Friday, legal representatives for the activists stated that four of them, excluding Yaniv, had admitted to being members of Palestine Action during the trial, but that this was irrelevant, because Palestine Action was not proscribed as a terrorist group until a year after the act of vandalism.
View image in fullscreen Police and supporters of the ‘Barclays five’ outside Preston crown court on Friday. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian In a statement put out by the five after the ruling, the group said they were “extremely relieved that the court has seen sense” but said a terrorism sentencing “should never have been an option” and accused the state of “attempting to equate property damage to the Israeli war machine with terrorism”.
They said: “A terrorism sentence would not only aggravate our sentence significantly, it would mean we would be imprisoned as terrorists and subject to notification requirements for 15-plus years upon release. Those requirements include notifying police of any new address, bank account, phone number, email address, relationship and more. If we failed to do so, even by accident, we would face an additional five years in prison.
“The proscription of Palestine Action, the arre…