An interesting comment by Craig Murray on the related Filton case:
This is an extraordinary new legal strategy by which the sentencing for ordinary criminal charges may be radically increased if the judge, and the judge alone, decides there is a terrorist link post verdict. The jury has no say on whether there is a terrorist connection or not, and the judges hide from the jury the possibility of this happening at all.
But the public are not stupid and do not live under a rock. The jury sent a note in the second Filton case to the judge Patrick Field asking him whether there would be sentencing under “terrorist connection”. Field replied to the jury that this was “not your concern”.
Can anyone familiar with British law explain this? Can a judge really change a sentence after the trial? Isn't adding charges and aggravating circumstances the job of the prosecutor, not the judge?
Not sure if I can trust this blog, looking at another article linked from that one:
Palestine Action was a legal organisation.
Nearly a year later, the government of Keir Starmer declared it a
terrorist group – the first time in British history that a non-violent
direct action organisation has been proscribed.
AFAIK, they rammed their van through a front shutter, without knowing who might be on the other side; and as police tried to arrest them, one of them hit a female police officer in the back/spine with a sledgehammer.
It looks like the original speech to the jury that won this case is published online here: https://greghadfield.medium.com/tony-greenstein-the-most-imp... - definitely worth a read.
An interesting comment by Craig Murray on the related Filton case:
This is an extraordinary new legal strategy by which the sentencing for ordinary criminal charges may be radically increased if the judge, and the judge alone, decides there is a terrorist link post verdict. The jury has no say on whether there is a terrorist connection or not, and the judges hide from the jury the possibility of this happening at all.
But the public are not stupid and do not live under a rock. The jury sent a note in the second Filton case to the judge Patrick Field asking him whether there would be sentencing under “terrorist connection”. Field replied to the jury that this was “not your concern”.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/08/of-judges-ju...
Can anyone familiar with British law explain this? Can a judge really change a sentence after the trial? Isn't adding charges and aggravating circumstances the job of the prosecutor, not the judge?
Not sure if I can trust this blog, looking at another article linked from that one:
-- https://substack.com/home/post/p-184498793AFAIK, they rammed their van through a front shutter, without knowing who might be on the other side; and as police tried to arrest them, one of them hit a female police officer in the back/spine with a sledgehammer.
Doesn't sound non-violent to me..