‘I was so isolated’: Pro-Palestine activist attempted suicide in UK prison 

Warning: This story contains details about suicide that some readers may find disturbing. If you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal thoughts, help and support are available. 

London, United Kingdom – Before Charlotte Head was arrested, she was a charity worker supporting victims of domestic violence. She had also volunteered at refugee camps in Calais.

“Such a terrorist,” she says, tongue in cheek, speaking to Al Jazeera in London.

Head, 29, is part of the so-called “Filton 24”, two dozen pro-Palestine activists alleged to have raided the Bristol branch of Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, in August 2024.

Less than a year later, after other activists broke into an airbase in Oxfordshire and allegedly spray-painted two Voyager refuelling and transport planes, the UK proscribed Palestine Action, the group which claimed responsibility for both incidents, as a “terrorist” organisation.

“We were some of the first activists in a very long time to be treated as terrorists,” Head said. “That had a massive impact on our treatment inside the carceral system.”

She said family and friends encountered overly burdensome administrative difficulties when trying to arrange prison visits while the books she wanted to read were screened, claims that are consistent with the accounts of other Palestine Action-linked activists and their families, but allegations the Ministry of Justice has previously denied.

Head, whose barrister in court likened her to a suffragette, was released three weeks ago on bail. Convicted of no crime, she had served 18 months in prison, well beyond the UK’s usual six-month pre-trial detention limit.

‘I was so depressed and so isolated’

After she was released, Head’s friend asked what she wanted to eat as one of her first meals.

“I sat there completely overwhelmed, so she just said, ‘Right, pesto pasta’, and I swear nothing has ever tasted that good.”

While getting used to her freedom, living in a seaside town and continuing her activism – Al Jazeera interviewed Head at the launch of a new database tracking the repression of pro-Palestine voices – she remembers her lowest points in jail.

During her detention, she was moved from Bronzefield prison in southern England to Foston Hall, a facility nearly 250km (155 miles) north, far further from her loved ones.

In August 2025, about a year after she was arrested, she said she attempted to take her own life at Foston Hall.

“I was so depressed and so isolated and was so aware that the public was just being told these lies about us, by the police, by the right-wing press, by the state itself – I had no power to counter that narrative.

“I tried to take my own life … purely out of powerlessness of being used as a political play piece and having very little recourse to [my] own agency.”

She said she was taken to an emergency department, “where I was handcuffed to a prison officer the whole time”. After blood tests, she was returned to prison from hospital the following day.

The prison system’s conditions need “massive” reform, she said.

In 2025, 29 people died in the UK’s prisons in circumstances officially described as “self-inflicted”, while there were about 75,000 incidents of self-harm.

The hunger striking activists had also called for improved conditions, demanding an end to what they called censorship in prison, accusing authorities of withholding mail, calls and books.

Founded in 2020, Palestine Action’s stated objective has been to counter Israeli war crimes – and what it says is British complicity in them – by targeting weapons manufacturers and associated companies. Its main target is Elbit Systems, which has several UK sites.

The Israeli firm produces the drones that are used with deadly effect in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but the company’s UK subsidiary denies that it supplies the Israeli military.

All Palestine Action-linked activists have denied the charges against them.

Head is said to have driven a van into the Bristol site, using it as a “battering ram” to get inside the factory.

“It’s so painful to see that so little has changed in Palestine, that the genocide has continued unabated,” she said. “It’s horrifying, but it confirms what we’ve known all along, that state actors like Israel, the US and the UK were never going to abide by international law and that we must continue to voice our opposition and try to bring about true justice for Palestine.”

New protests against Elbit Systems UK

In recent weeks, in a dizzying turn of events, the High Court ruled that the Palestine Action ban was unlawful and all “Filton24” defendants have been acquitted of aggravated burglary. Twenty-three of the 24 were bailed in two rounds, including a group that participated in a life-threatening hunger strike. Only one, Samuel Corner, remains in jail. He faces an additional charge of causing grievous bodily harm to a police officer.

The jury reached partial or no verdicts on the counts of criminal damage and violent disorder, so Head and other activists now face a retrial.

On the Palestine Action ban, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been granted permission to appeal the High Court ruling.

Meanwhile, Elbit Systems UK continues to be targeted.

On Thursday, activists affiliated with a group called People Against Genocide claimed to have blocked the Elbit UK Systems site in Bristol by “locking on”, a protest tactic that involves attaching oneself to an object.

“The arms firm claim that the Filton facility is a research, development, and manufacturing hub, but quadcopter drones, of the exact type used to kill civilians in Gaza, have previously been discovered here, ready to be shipped to the Israeli military,” they said.

Avon and Somerset Police told Al Jazeera that three people “causing disruption” had been arrested for offences relating to “locking on, contrary to the Public Order Act 2003”.

At the time of publishing, Elbit Systems UK and the Ministry of Justice had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.