'My daughter Zoe is not a terrorist. Why has she spent a year in prison?'

The mother of jailed Palestine Action protester says she is proud of her and angry at the UK government

- John Simpson

Zoe Rogers has not been charged with a terrorist offence. Yesterday, she marked a year in detention without trial inside HMP Bronzefield, a high-security prison in Surrey.

Rogers, 21, was arrested during a Palestine Action raid on a site run by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit in Filton, near Bristol, last August.

"My daughter is not a terrorist," said her mother, Clare Hinchcliffe. "They charged them with violent disorder, criminal damage and aggravated burglary," she added, referring to her daughter and her co-defendants, who are collectively known as the Filton 24.

Palestine Action had not yet been banned as a terrorist organisation a move that has seen more than 700 people arrested for public displays of alleged support for the group since 5 July, when it was proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Shy and autistic, Rogers is one of two dozen defendants in that case who have been denied bail. She has pleaded not guilty.

Hinchcliffe, a senior campaigner for the London Cycling Campaign, said her daughter had been questioned for five days and that she and others had faced "the full force of the counter-terror police against them", adding: "That has been absolutely terrifying."

The Crown Prosecution Service said that it would be seeking to argue that the alleged offences had "a terrorist connection".

Under legislation drawn up in 2020 in response to two Islamist knife attacks, a terrorist connection is an aggravating factor, meaning that it could be applied by a judge when sentencing.