00:00Four Palestine action activists who caused £1.2 million worth of damage to an Israel-based defence firm's UK factory
00:08will seek to challenge their sentences in the Court of Appeal.
00:12This is the first time in British history that property damage has been used to sentence activists as terrorists.
00:19That property was 40 quadcopter drones that were destroyed in 20 minutes.
00:23Charlotte Head 30, Samuel Corner 24, Leona Cameo 31 and Fatima Rajwani 22
00:30used sledgehammers and crowbars to destroy computers, drones and other equipment
00:35at the Elbit Systems site near Bristol in August 2024.
00:39Corner, a former student at Oxford, struck police officer Kate Evans twice on the back
00:43with a £7 sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.
00:47In June, Mr Justice Johnson jailed Corner for seven years and eight months for criminal damage
00:51and causing grievous bodily harm, while Head and Cameo were jailed for five years
00:55and Rajwani for four years and eight months for criminal damage.
00:58Ellie, my daughter, spent nearly two years on remand, which is three times the legal limit.
01:04She should be with us today with time more than spent for criminal damage,
01:09which would have happened if she was just sentenced for the charge she was convicted of.
01:15Instead, she was sentenced as a terrorist and is in a higher security prison.
01:20She was 28 years of age when she took action as a forest school nursery teacher,
01:26where she was responsible for three to five-year-olds going home each night
01:30to watch children of a similar age being brutally murdered on social media.
01:34A statement was read out at the press conference from Charlotte Head.
01:39Our appeal against our terrorist sentences is far bigger than our case alone.
01:44This is a fight to make the law align with what everyone knows to be true.
01:51Taking action to save lives is not terrorism.
01:56We thank Lottie for those words.
02:00So beautifully said.
02:02Palestine action was prescribed by the government on July 5th, 2025,
02:08one year after the raid on Elbit Systems in August 2024.
02:13This was a political decision made by the CPS and reinforced by Judge Johnson.
02:20I also say that there was no intention to influence the government
02:24or to intimidate the public or a section of the public
02:27because the intention here was simply to damage weapons
02:31to prevent them from being sent to Israel.
02:34We are at a point in British history when pro-Palestine protest is criminalised
02:39and direct action in saving lives has become terrorism.
02:45And Fatima Zainab has just started living this nightmare.
02:48The judge is ruling that the raid amounted to an act of terrorism
02:51means the four activists will have to serve at least two-thirds of their sentences
02:55and will have to face parole board hearings to secure their release from prison.
02:59You
