Three protesters who staged a pro-Palestinian demonstration which “effectively forced” Sir Keir Starmer’s wife out of her own home have been given suspended prison sentences.
Leonorah Ward, 21, and Daniel Formentin, 24, both from Leeds, and Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle, hung a banner outside the Labour leader’s home in north London which read, “Starmer stop the killing” on April 9 this year.
They also placed painted bloody hand prints on the pavement and placed four rows of children’s shoes in front of the house to represent the hundreds of young people who have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli invasion which followed the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ward, Formentin, and Lewis were found guilty of an offence under Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 after a one-day trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
District Judge Michael Snow sentenced them to six weeks of imprisonment but suspended it for 12 months, meaning if they commit no further offences in the next year they will not go to prison.
Giving evidence at the trial, Sir Keir’s wife Victoria said she felt “a bit sick” when she came across the protest as she drove home and decided to park her car around the corner.
She said, “I felt apprehensive and uncomfortable.”
At an earlier hearing in April, prosecutor David Burns told the court Ms. Starmer “returned from a shopping trip with her son and couldn’t return to her property,” and was “intimidated and scared” by the protesters’ actions.
Mr. Burns said, “This really affected [Sir Keir’s] wife, she was effectively forced out of her own home.”
Ms. Starmer Was ‘Compelling and Persuasive’ Witness
The judge said Ms. Starmer had been a “compelling and persuasive” witness, and he said he could “understand why politicians are so fearful” considering the “number of attacks on our democracy.”Judge Snow pointed out two MPs had been murdered in recent years: Jo Cox in 2016 and Sir David Amess in 2021.
He said of the house: “The person who resides here is a senior politician ... Anyone in that situation being aware that there were protesters directly outside their home is likely to cause distress.”
“It is laughable to assert to the contrary,” added.
The protesters were from a group called Youth Demand, which says it is a “new youth resistance campaign fighting for an end to genocide.” On its website it says it takes “non-violent direct action.”
Defence lawyer Andrew Morris put it to Ms. Starmer that it was a “peaceful protest” but she responded, “It would look like a peaceful protest if it hadn’t been outside my home.”
‘We Didn’t Want to Scare Anyone’
Lewis said: “We weren’t planning on staying there the whole day. We didn’t want to scare anyone.”Formentin, a marketing consultant, told the court he had targeted Sir Keir because he believed the Labour leader was “not accurately representing the country” over the conflict in Gaza.
He said, “There is an overwhelming sense that young people in this country do want a ceasefire in Palestine.”
But Formentin said they had no plans to confront Sir Keir or his wife and he denied the protest could be seen as being intimidating or threatening.
Ward told the court she “didn’t take the action lightly.”
Judge Snow, who said the activists had continued the protest despite being told by a police officer to leave, ordered them to pay £200 towards legal costs.
