August 17, 2026
A prominent human rights lawyer in
the United Kingdom has been charged with criminal contempt
for his closing speech in the trial of his client, Charlotte
“Lottie” Head, one of four Palestine Action activists
who were sentenced as terrorists over their involvement in a
2024 protest and raid on an Israeli weapons factory. Their
sentencing marked the first time a British judge issued
terrorism sentencing enhancements on people who were not
actually convicted of terrorism. An additional 21 currently
jailed Palestine Action protesters could face similar
sentences, which carry multiyear prison terms.
The
charges against Rajiv Menon are similarly unprecedented in
British legal history. He is accused of encouraging a jury
to acquit Head according to their conscience. Menon denies
this accusation and says he was simply informing the jury of
a prior legal case. He adds that, along with the U.K.
government’s ban on Palestine Action under anti-terrorism
laws, the case against him is intended to have a “chilling
effect” against pro-Palestine protest, and carries
“serious constitutional implications.”
Transcript:
This is a rush
transcript. Copy may not be in its final
form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is
Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman,
with Anjali Kamat.
ANJALI KAMAT: We
turn now to the case of a leading human rights attorney in
Britain who is facing criminal charges himself over his
representation of a client in court. Rajiv Menon KC,
King’s Counsel, is accused of criminal contempt over his
closing speech at the trial of six Palestine Action
activists for their direct action protest at a weapons
factory owned by Elbit Systems, a supplier of arms to
Israel, in Filton in August of 2024. Menon is being accused
of misleading the jury and ignoring the judge’s directions
in his remarks. He is believed to be the first defense
attorney in Britain to be prosecuted over statements in a
closing speech.
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Mr. Justice [Nicklin]’s court order
read in part, quote, “the respondent made statements which
were capable of suggesting to the jury that the court was
not impartial, in that he referred to the defendants being
prevented from giving evidence about Elbit Systems, and
later referred to Elbit Systems being ’protected’ and
‘wined and dined in the corridors of
power.’”
AMY GOODMAN: Garden Court
Chambers, where Menon has worked as a barrister for 30
years, said the charges brought against him were
unprecedented and have, quote, “sent shockwaves through
the legal profession,” unquote. The chair of the Criminal
Bar Association has said the charges have left attorneys
afraid of doing their jobs. Amnesty International said,
quote, “The prosecution of Palestine Action lawyer, Rajiv
Menon KC, is a serious threat to fair trial rights and the
right to protest,” unquote.
For more, we’re joined
by Rajiv Menon KC himself in his first television broadcast
interview since the charges were brought. He’s joining us
from London, where Democracy Now! just
was.
Thanks so much for being with us. Why have you
decided to speak out? In fact, you encourage your clients,
Palestine Action protesters, not to speak directly to the
press, is that right? And yet, now you’re the focus of the
court.
RAJIV MENON: Firstly, thank
you for inviting me.
I’ve decided to speak out
because for the last few months a number of senior judges in
this country have decided to make the most serious
allegations against me in public, publishing those
allegations on the Judicial Office website. And, of course,
you’ve already highlighted the fact that I’m the first
lawyer, as far as I’m aware, as far as my lawyers are
aware, ever to be prosecuted for contempt of court in this
— in British legal history. And I just feel that it’s
important that I have a voice in this and that I at least
address some of the matters in general terms that I’m
accused of, as opposed to simply waiting, you know, for my
opportunity in court months from now to say what I need to
say.
ANJALI KAMAT: And, Rajiv, can
you explain what the — why these contempt charges are
being brought against you? What exactly did you say that was
considered contempt of court?
RAJIV
MENON: So, I made a closing speech in a Palestine
Action protest case, as you said, on the 8th of January this
year on behalf of my client Charlotte Head, who was one of
those engaged in direct action against the Elbit Systems
factory. And the judge subsequently made seven specific
allegations of contempt against me. I’m — probably not
wise for me to go into the full detail of that, but suffice
to say, perhaps, that I categorically deny deliberately
breaching any judicial order, and, as far as I’m aware, as
far as I believe, didn’t inadvertently breach any order,
either. I mean, contempt of court is a complicated
jurisdiction, but, in essence, it involves a serious
interference with the administration of justice. And I
categorically deny that anything that I said in that closing
speech amounted to a serious interference with the
administration of justice. But that’s the allegation in a
nutshell.
AMY GOODMAN: Rajiv Menon,
since our systems are a little different, the legal systems
not only in the United States and Britain, but around the
world, if you can say in lay terms, in your closing
argument, what is the argument you were making? I mean, we
have a defense in the United States, where we have a
description, for example, called jury nullification. They
can say someone did something, but they don’t feel they
should be found guilty. Talk about what the Palestine Action
defendants were accused of, who you represented, and what
your argument was.
RAJIV MENON: Yes.
So, my client Charlotte Head was charged with aggravated
burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage. And she had
statutory defenses to aggravated burglary and violent
disorder. The problem was, in relation to criminal damage,
there was no dispute that she had participated with others
in damaging property belonging to the Israeli arms
manufacturer Elbit Systems. And the trial judge had
withdrawn her only available defense of lawful excuse to
that charge. And so, on the face of it, she had no defense
to the charge. But, of course, she’s innocent until proven
guilty. And ultimately, the facts are for the jury, not for
the judge. The jury are the sole judges of the
facts.
And so, in my speech, I told the jury about a
very famous case from 1670 — excuse me — of William Penn
and William Mead, who had been charged with unlawful
preaching on the streets of London. And in that case, the
trial judge had directed the jury to convict, and the jury
had refused to convict. And the jury was subsequently
imprisoned and, when they continued to refuse to convict,
were fined. And some of those jurors refused to pay the
fine. They were locked up. And that case, that came to be
known as Bushel’s Case, is one of the most famous
cases in British legal history. And I told the jury about
that case, as hundreds, if not thousands, of other lawyers
have done before me. And I told the jury about a plaque at
the Old Bailey, probably the most famous courtroom in the
world, where that case is celebrated — again, something
that’s been done by countless lawyers before me.
And
what I’ve been accused of is that by doing that, I was
informing the jury about their right to acquit a defendant
according to their conscience and was inviting them to do
so. And that is an allegation I categorically deny. What you
call jury nullification in the United States is called jury
equity here. But I categorically deny — I need to make
this absolutely clear — that I either informed the jury of
the existence of that principle, that fundamental principle,
or invited them to invoke it. What I did do was tell them
about that famous case and about the plaque that celebrates
the case. And that’s at the very heart of the allegation
that I face.
ANJALI KAMAT: Rajiv, I
want to turn to a clip of your client, Charlotte Head,
speaking to AJ+ earlier this year.
CHARLOTTE
HEAD: Palestine will never be forgotten. And for
me, it’s something that I will never stop supporting and
fighting for and wanting to scream from the rooftops. … We
wanted to stop the manufacturing of weapons on British soil
that were being used by Israel in the genocide in Gaza. I
think we had asked nicely. We had asked so many times, in
every different way, and the government wasn’t listening.
… Having been in prison, which is obviously, you know, not
even comparable to what people are going through in Gaza,
but experiencing a smidge of that isolation, having people
tell you that you’re not alone and that people are there
and that you’re never going to be forgotten, I think
that’s probably the most poignant thing I could
say.
ANJALI KAMAT: Rajiv Menon, tell
us about your client, Charlotte Head, and what exactly she
was charged with. And she’s back in prison
now?
RAJIV MENON: She is. Well,
she’s an extraordinary woman — I should say that from
the outset — who has dedicated most of her adult life to
helping those less fortunate than her. She spent three years
working in the refugee camps in Calais, doing a number of
different jobs at the time to assist refugees and asylum
seekers. At the time of her involvement in the action
against the factory in Filton, she was working with women
suffering domestic — and children, suffering domestic
violence and abuse in London. So, she’s someone who’s
dedicated, as I said, most of her adult life to helping
others, and was driven to participate in this action by the
genocide that was being live-streamed onto our televisions
and our mobile phones in this country.
As I said, she
was charged with aggravated burglary, violent disorder and
criminal damage. She was acquitted by the jury at the first
trial of aggravated burglary, which was the most serious
charge that she faced, a charge that can technically attract
a sentence of life imprisonment. The prosecution
subsequently dropped the charge of violent disorder against
her. The jury at the first trial were hung on that
charge.
As far as criminal damage is concerned, she
was — the jury couldn’t decide at the first trial, but
she had a retrial later in April and May, and at that
retrial, she was convicted of criminal damage and was given
a custodial sentence of five years’ imprisonment. She’s
currently serving that sentence.
And in addition to
that, the trial judge found that her offending, quite
extraordinarily — the first time this has ever happened in
a protest case in this country — that her offending had a
terrorist connection. And as a result, she’s subject now
to a draconian regime within the prison system, which has,
in real terms, lengthened the time that she will have to
spend in custody. And that is a matter that’s currently
subject to appeal.
ANJALI KAMAT: And
the judge in this case, in the first trial and the second
trial, put several restrictions on what was allowed as a
defense. Is that right? Can you explain
that?
RAJIV MENON: Yes. So, because
the trial judge had withdrawn their justifications from them
— as I mentioned earlier, Charlotte’s defense of lawful
excuse was withdrawn from the jury; other justification
defenses were withdrawn — the judge restricted what the
defendants could say about their underlying motivations, and
specifically about what they could say about Elbit Systems.
And so, on a number of occasions during the first trial,
defendants were stopped from telling the jury what they had
learned about Elbit Systems prior to their involvement in
the action. But they still managed to say a great deal. And
to be fair, the judge never directed the jury at the first
trial that the jury should disregard what they
said.
At the retrial, when they were solely facing the
charge of criminal damage, further restrictions were placed
on them, and they were not allowed to say anything to the
jury at the retrial about the reasons or underlying
motivations that they had for either joining Palestine
Action or participating in the action against the Filton
factory or their specific views about Elbit Systems. So,
that further restriction was placed on them at the retrial,
that was not there at the first trial, where they were
facing other charges, as well. I mean, it’s quite
complicated, this, but I hope that explains it in a
nutshell.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we end,
we want to talk about that larger issue of Palestine Action
being considered a terrorist organization in London. I was
there last week, and I asked
the British MP Jeremy Corbyn about Prime Minister Andy
Burnham’s apology for the Labour Party’s initial stance
on Gaza, and part of his response was about that crackdown
on Palestine Action. This is what MP Corbyn
said.
JEREMY CORBYN: If he is serious
about a complete change in policy, if he’s serious —
it’s a big “if” — then why are we criminalizing
people who take part in protest in Britain? A number have
already been convicted and face long stretches in prison.
These are nonviolent direct action protests. And there are
also probably 2,500 to 3,000 people who have been arrested
for holding a placard, in contravention of the Terrorism Act
2000, which is basically labeling anyone that holds a
placard up saying “I support Palestine Action,” calling
them a terrorist. This includes people in their eighties and
even nineties, retired Anglican clergy people and many
others. It’s an absurd situation.
AMY
GOODMAN: So, that’s British MP Jeremy Corbyn when
we were in London last week. As we wrap up, Rajiv Menon, if
you can talk about how you’re fighting the charges against
you, the contempt of court charges, and also the chilling
effect this has on how far lawyers will go to represent
cases like these?
RAJIV MENON:
Absolutely. Well, let me deal with the latter first. I mean,
there is no question, as the chair of the Criminal Bar
Association and the chair of the Bar Council in this country
have both publicly said, that the prosecution being brought
against me for contempt of court is having a chilling effect
on criminal defense lawyers and the worries that they
undoubtedly have these days, particularly in protest cases,
about what they can and cannot say. And that’s obviously
because of the unique, extraordinary and unprecedented
action being taken against me. I mean, I think that’s
irrefutable. I mean, there’s so much evidence about it.
And literally hundreds of people have contacted me, lawyers
and others, to talk about that chilling effect. And, I mean,
that clearly is something that is of — you know, is
extremely worrying. It’s been described by some as a
descent into authoritarianism.
As far as the case
against me is concerned, already the Court of Appeal in this
country, in a judgment in May, has held that the trial judge
in the Filton case and another senior member of the British
judiciary, a lord justice of appeal, a member of the Court
of Appeal, acted unlawfully against me in an excessive
jurisdiction by allowing a direct referral to the High Court
being made against me for contempt of court. So, we have
already had that victory. The case then went back to the
trial judge, who has now instituted contempt of court
proceedings against me under a different procedure. We are
now appealing against that, as well, on the basis that that
also was unlawful. We’re awaiting a date for that appeal.
We think it’ll probably be in October or November.
Depending on the outcome of that appeal, of course, there
are different possibilities. If I win that appeal, then this
may go away. Alternatively, it may be referred to the
attorney general to make a decision as to whether or not I
should be prosecuted. If I lose my appeal, then I will stand
trial for contempt of court at some stage either later this
year or early next year, with the risk of a potential
two-year prison sentence hanging over my head. So, this is a
serious matter with serious constitutional implications,
which is of tremendous worry and concern to members of the
criminal bar and other members of the legal profession in
this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Rajiv
Menon, I want to thank you for being with us and agreeing to
do this interview, against your own lawyer’s wishes, a
leading British human rights and criminal defense lawyer
facing an unprecedented contempt of court charges, and could
be sentenced up to two years in prison for his closing
speech for a Palestine Action defendant, speaking to us from
London.
Coming up, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley
Fascism and the War on Democracy. Stay with
us.
AMY GOODMAN: “We Are Here” by
Scott Donaldson and Richard Samuel Nolan.
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