Mira Hammad and Rosalind Burgin’s protest clients avoid custodial sentence as judge refuses restraining order
21 May 2026
Garden Court North’s Mira Hammad and Rosalind Burgin represented two co-defendants at Newcastle Crown Court (pictured) during an eight-day jury trial. Credit: Duncan Andison / Shutterstock.
Summer Oxlade and Georgia Coote, clients of Garden Court North’s Mira Hammad and Rosalind Burgin,were sentenced earlier today (21 May 2026) to community orders for inflicting criminal damage without lawful excuse.
Ms Oxlade, Ms Coote, and their co-defendant Hollie Mildenhall, who is represented by Nexus Chambers’ Ife Thompson, staged a protest at an arms factory owned by the State of Israel in February 2025.
The Judge gave community orders for all three defendants: 100 hours unpaid work for Ms Oxlade, and 80 hours unpaid work apiece for Ms Coote and Ms Mildenhall.
Upon sentencing, the Judge commented: “I accept as part of your evidence, the evidence of all three of you, you were insistent that none of you wanted to use violence. This was a non-violent protest, I accept none of you used or threatened violence at all.”
He further stated that all three protesters were motivated by ”conscience” and ”genuinely believed” disrupting the factory would stop a ”genocide”.
The Judge also refused the Crown’s application for a restraining order, which would have had the effect of preventing the defendants from protesting outside the premises in future, commenting: “I have considered the prosecution’s application for a restraining order with care. Before coming into court I was of the view I ought to make one, but having heard submissions and considered further, I am of the view it is not necessary in this case.”
Defended on grounds of preventing a genocide
The jury returned guilty verdicts after Mira and Rosalind delivered closing speeches to the jury at Newcastle Crown Court in March 2026.
During the eight-day trial, all three defendants accepted that they had intentionally caused damage to signage and fencing, and sprayed the premises with red paint.
The court heard that the engineering company which runs the factory in Newcastle is owned by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, an Israeli-state owned weapons company.
In her closing speech on behalf of Ms Oxlade, Mira said she had wanted to “try and stop a genocide” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Mira said Ms Oxlade “saw the pain of somebody thousands of miles away who had nothing in common with her and felt moved to do something to put a stop to it”.
Rosalind explained Ms Coote’s evidence that her actions were motivated by seeing Israel’s “onslaught” and “carpet-bombing” of Gaza, witnessing “horrors upon horrors” on the news. She was “drawing the dots” between the “horrors happening there” and the companies in the “supply chain” in the UK, adding she was “acting in the belief” a factory “near her home” was making weapons for use by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
In September 2025, a report commissioned by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the OPT found that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Two months later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for the arrest of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Mira and Rosalind are part of Garden Court North’s protest rights team. They were instructed to represent Ms Oxlade and Ms Coote by Nicola Hall of Robert Lizar Solicitors.
Additional media
BBC News – Factory Gaza protesters ordered to do unpaid work
Garden Court North Chambers – Mira Hammad and Rosalind Burgin deliver closing speeches in jury trial over factory protest
For further information, please contact Alex Blair, Communications Manager at Garden Court North Chambers: ablair@gcnchambers.co.uk
