Theatre of the Absurd

A tale of the plea hearings of the 'Lift The Ban' placard holders

I was at Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday, but rather than a dry, legal procedure I found myself sitting in the audience - the public gallery - watching a performance from the Theatre of the Absurd at which I was finding it hard not to laugh. As the session progressed I was half expecting the District Judge and others seated in the room to start turning into rhinoceros’. For readers not familiar with the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco here is the plot summary. One of the defendants appearing on video link was told off by The District Judge for committing an act of mockery, ‘it isn’t funny’ she said, like headmistress to pupil. The defendant was quick to respond that indeed this was not in the least bit funny, that what was happening was very serious, and it is. That 2,700 people are currently being hauled through the UK courts under terrorism charges for quietly holding a banner showing support for a protest group who are trying to stop a genocide is very serious. It is serious for the individuals in the dock, it is serious for our protest rights, it is serious for the public purse and it is, quite literally, deadly serious for the victims of the genocide who these protesters are ultimately trying to protect.

Pencil drawing by Trudi Warner of defendants in the dock at the Lift The Ban plea hearings at Westminster Magistrates Court

Currently, every Monday and Tuesday 60 people - 30 per day - who have been charged under section 13 of the Terrorism Act for taking part in the Lift The Ban campaign and “displaying a placard bearing the words Palestine Action” are in court for their plea hearings. I quoted there the words of the clerk whose job it is to repetitively shout out that same charge for every defendant. Let’s do the maths: there have been over 2,700 arrests of people who have taken part in the Lift The Ban campaign to date. Therefore, it is going to take 90 court days just to get through their plea hearings. That is if every single one of them is charged, some of the Lift The Ban sitters are still waiting for their charge letter to drop through the door. At the plea hearing - they are all pleading not guilty - each defendant is set a trial date. They will be tried in batches of five and each trial is estimated to take a day. By my maths, that’s a further 540 court days. And this in the context of our courts bursting at the seams, and justified outrage at how long it is taking for cases to come to trial. This at a time when the UK government is reviewing what the hell to do about the fact that their courts are overloaded, including proposing limiting jury trial a legal tradition that dates back to the 12th Century.

You may have noted I used the term “shouted” when referring to the clerk of the court. She had to shout because those appearing via video link often find it hard to hear what is being said. You know when you watch your parent or grand parent (depending on your age) holding Facetime to their ear? Yes, imagine that. Except this isn’t a Facetime chat about the family cat and the weather, this is someone who could be sent to prison for their actions and could have a terrorism offence permanently attached to their name. It’s not just the video link attendees who struggle to hear but the defendants in court who are in the dock. When they shuffle in they are ceremoniously locked inside a glass booth with eight thin slits through which the sound is meant to travel. Add to that the fact that many of the participants in the ‘Lift The Ban’ campaign are elderly and often hard of hearing. It boggles my mind that somewhere as critical as a courtroom has been designed in such a way to make it difficult for people to hear. On one occasion the District Judge asked a defendant who was clearly struggling to hear, “would it be better for you to be outside the dock to hear us?”, a somewhat pointless question given he couldn’t hear her. I am pleased to say he was subsequently brought outside into the main court for his plea though.

You are probably now starting to get the picture of who these alleged terrorists are. They present no threat of physical danger to anyone, but there is nevertheless a performative locking of the door when they are in the dock. Now I want you to imagine the back row of the court room. Sat there were five officials in plain clothes. I was told they were counter-terrorism police. Let’s do some fun “back of a fag packet” calculations. Let’s say they were of junior rank - unlikely as some of them looked too old for that. A London starting salary is around £42k. When you add hidden costs such as NICs, pensions etc, an employee costs about 1.75 their salary, which brings that salary cost to £73.5k per officer. So that was an annual salary bill of £367,500 sitting right there in front of me. That’s £1,655 for that day alone and we potentially have 90+ days of this to get through so that’s a ‘back of a fag packet’ cost of £148,950 gone from the public purse just for the plea hearings charade. That’s before we even get to the trials or think about the cost of the Judge, the lawyers for The Crown Prosecution Service and all the assistants required to run a court including the rather officious woman who would rap her painted nails, covered by a pair of disposable polythene gloves, on the glass window of the public gallery to tell us off for whispering and sniggering. We felt like kids in the back of the school bus.

And then there were the little moments of dissent that played into this theatre of the absurd. When asked to plea, some of the defendants felt the need to make a statement about “our corrupt government who have created this pantomine” or to read out the names of children killed in Gaza or to refuse to enter a plea while a judicial review of the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action was still ongoing. One man in the dock began to read a statement to which the headmistress - the District Judge - shouted over him telling him to stop. When he persisted she ordered him to be removed from the court. This involved her retiring to her chamber while the court staff fumbled with the door lock of the dock in order to remove the elderly man while hearty applause rang out from the public gallery. Only when the kids had calmed down again did the headmistress come back in to continue with the show.

Pencil drawing by Trudi Warner of defendants in the dock at the Lift The Ban plea hearings at Westminster Magistrates Court

I cannot know what the District Judge, the counter-terrorism police or the court staff all thought of the whole charade. Maybe the counter-terror police were enjoying having a bit of mindless downtime but I doubt they joined the police force with that in mind. The only person who showed any enthusiasm for their job was the polythene gloved, nail rapping security officer.

The District Judge, the CPS lawyers, the security and police officers are just doing their jobs and I am not mocking them for that. What is absurd is that we’ve gone and gotten ourselves into this situation where we are acting out this pointless process. A chain of events has been set into play by a government heavily influenced by lobbyists, idealogues and ‘junk tanks’ who are trying to stifle dissent because dissent gets in the way of them making enormous amounts of money through selling weaponry and oil; because dissent calls out uncomfortable truths that those in power would like to ignore.

There were already sufficient criminal laws in place to punish people for direct action protest that caused damage to property. In fact, since the introduction of the 2022 Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act and the anti-protest laws that followed in quick succession, there are plenty of ways of charging and criminalising people for protest action. Palestine Action did not need to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation in order for those involved to face serious consequences for their actions. Had it not been proscribed, the Lift The Ban campaign would never have come about. And even in the scenario of the Lift The Ban campaign taking place, had the policymakers taken a pragmatic look at the risk of these quiet placard holders to society and decided to leave them sitting there, their campaign would not have received the exposure it has, it is unlikely it would have grown to be a movement of thousands, and there would not now be an additional 2,700 people going through our court system that is bursting at the seams.

You no longer need to go to the theatre to watch an absurdist piece of theatre, just head over to Westminster Magistrates Court on a Monday or Tuesday and you can watch it for free on the tax payers dime.

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In other news,

My feature film The Line We Crossed that charts the unraveling of protest rights in the UK and documents the emergence of Defend Our Juries, the campaigning group behind the Lift The Ban campaign, is now available to stream. In addition, screenings and Q&As of The Line We Crossed are continuing in 2026. I will be in Cambridge this Thursday 22 January for a screening and Q&A hosted by the Cambridge Human Rights Law Society. Joining me for the Q&A are featured participants in the film Dr Clive Dolphin and Sam Griffiths.

The release of our feature film “The Conspiracists” in UK cinemas and community centres is soon to start. I’ll be in Manchester on 1 February for a screening and Q&A hosted by The Quakers at the Friends’ Meeting House.

I have been invited to talk to sixth formers at a school on 2nd February about my work as a human rights documentary filmmaker and some of the themes covered in my films. This is the generation who are going to be most affected by these issues and I am keen engage with them. If this is something you think may be of interest to a school you have connections with please reach out.

I am continuing to work on our next feature film The Humanitarians. I began filming for it in 2022 and hope to complete it this year. It is about the right to asylum and the rise in anti-immigration sentiment. It is an investigative film that digs deep into this gnarly, complex issue that is driving us apart. I remain incredibly grateful to all the people in my orbit who are supporting me to get this film made.

I’ve also now begun to work on a new film project investigating the growing anti-rights movement in the UK. I expect this to be a 2 year journey of discovery and hope to release the film in 2028.

To keep up to date with screenings, events and progress on these projects I recommend signing up to the Page75 Productions newsletter.