Five activists who damaged a Barclays bank branch in Burnley while protesting the bank's alleged links to Israeli defense company Elbit Systems will not receive terrorist sentences, a judge ruled Friday, according to The Guardian.
The defendants, known as the "Barclays five," were convicted in June of causing more than £200,000 in damage after smashing windows and throwing red paint inside and outside the Lancashire branch in August 2024.
The activists targeted Barclays over its reported shareholding in Elbit Systems. However, Judge Altham, the recorder of Preston, determined that the scale and nature of the damage did not reach the threshold required for terrorist sentencing.
He noted that the incident was less serious than previous Palestine Action attacks involving larger-scale destruction or sensitive sites such as arms facilities.
The five will be sentenced next month for criminal damage, but the judge's ruling means they will face shorter prison terms than would have been possible under terrorist sentencing provisions.
The possibility of applying a terrorism-related sentencing enhancement emerged only after the activists were convicted. Trial judge Philip Parry had informed prosecutors and defense lawyers that he intended to consider a "terrorist connection" after information emerged during the trial. The defendants and jury had not been told before the verdict that terrorism would subsequently be considered.
At Friday's proceedings at Preston Crown Court, lawyers for the activists said four of the five acknowledged during the trial that they had belonged to Palestine Action. They argued that this should have no bearing on sentencing because the organization was not classified as a terrorist group until a year after the Barclays incident.
Following the ruling, the five said they were “extremely relieved that the court has seen sense". They maintained that terrorist sentencing “should never have been an option" and accused authorities 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 arrests of over 3,500 people under the Terrorism Act for holding signs and the sentencing of direct action activists as terrorists, are all tools being used by the state to protect the Israeli weapons industry and continue its role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza," the activists charged.
“The use of counter-terror powers against direct action for Palestine came after extensive lobbying by the Israeli government, Elbit Systems, pro-Israel lobby groups and politicians with vested interests."
Barclays had previously said its holdings in Elbit Systems were connected solely to transactions carried out on behalf of clients and that the bank itself was neither an investor nor shareholder in the Israeli defense company. The bank sold all of its Elbit shares in October 2024.
Palestine Action was formally designated a terrorist organization by the British government in July 2025. The move followed an attack by activists on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol that caused an estimated £1 million in damage.
The group has carried out other high-profile actions, including damaging a portrait of Lord Balfour at Trinity College Cambridge with red paint and cuts. In another incident, activists took two busts of Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, from a display cabinet at Manchester University.
Established in 2020, Palestine Action describes itself as a “direct action" network opposing what it calls British “complicity" with Israel, particularly over arms sales.
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)