Bhatt Murphy acting on behalf of Laura Murton, have today sent a letter of claim to Kent police after armed officers threatened Ms Murton with arrest under the Terrorism Act for holding a Palestinian flag and having signs which read “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide”.
Ms Murton stated: “People should be able to exercise their legal right to protest without being harassed by those that claim to uphold the law. I speak to people all the time that do not go out and protest for fear of arrest or worse. For this reason, I am challenging Kent Police. They have grossly overstepped and I want people to know that so they too can feel empowered to act on their beliefs.”
Shamik Dutta at Bhatt Murphy, representing Ms Murton, said “We have today sent a pre-action letter to The Chief Constable of Kent Police on Laura Murton’s behalf in a proposed claim for judicial review challenging the conduct of Kent Police in her case. Kent Police have two weeks to respond. If they fail to do so in a satisfactory way we will be advising our client on initiating judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court.
We have been instructed to challenge the Kent Police decisions to:
- Deploy armed police against Ms Murton on 14 July 2025;
- Prohibit her from lawfully protesting in support of Palestinian people and in opposition to the ongoing genocide being committed against Palestinians by the Israeli government;
- Detain our client
- Threaten her with arrest
- Retain data about her linking her to the commission of a Terrorism Act offence
- Infer to The Guardian newspaper in their press statement on or around 17 July 2025 that she had committed a Terrorism Act offence.”
The case has been reported in The Guardian newspaper, here.
Ms Murton is represented by Shamik Dutta, Caleb Simpson and Rachel Cope-Thompson of Bhatt Murphy.
