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Stuart Bretherton, a 26-year-old from Renfrewshire in Scotland, was found guilty of a breach of the peace and sentenced to 12 months in prison after taking part in a pro-Palestine demonstration at an arms factory in Glasgow in June 2022. Bretherton, who works for a fuel poverty campaign group, was one of a group of activists who climbed on to the roof of the factory that was supplying arms to Israel, before unfurling banners and setting off pyrotechnics. His sentence was reduced to 16 weeks on appeal and he was released on 9 December 2024. He sent this letter to the Guardian about his experience behind bars.
When the sentence was announced, I couldn’t believe it. I had climbed on to the roof of a building and sat down for half a day, two years ago, and that’s worthy of a year in prison?
Social workers had advised the court that no more than a fine or community service was appropriate so I never expected it in a million years. I’m still so angry with the legal system and the sheriff who sent me and four other young people, who all make positive contributions to society and have people who rely on us, to prison.
Those first few days in prison were like an out-of-body experience, like a nightmare. It was three days before I could call any of my loved ones due to the prison admin system and only the support and sympathy from other prisoners got me through.
Even after that first shock I was still stressed every day because I was away from my partner, who was expecting our first child. I just couldn’t stop thinking that at the time that she needed me most I was powerless to do anything for her. I was limited to four visits a month and only so much credit on the phone, so even minimum contact was hard.
We were woken up shortly before 7am. I was lucky to be in the minority of Barlinnie prisoners to have a job, working in horticulture from about 9-4. The rest of the hours and all weekend we were locked up. Most people who didn’t have jobs spent about 23 hours a day in their cell. The only daily escape was walking in circles around a stone yard.
Everyone was so supportive – and often outraged on my behalf. Even some of my family who haven’t always supported my politics or involvement in direct action have had their eyes opened to the severity and viciousness of state repression. This has shifted their perspective on the actions of arms and oil companies that the state is defending. It’s got people like my aunties following Palestine Action on social media and questioning the value of prisons.
I have really learned how much everyone cares for me and my loved ones. People I hadn’t heard from in years, people I’ve never met, like colleagues of friends and family, people who read about it online or in the paper, all got in touch saying how outraged they were and asking what they could do to help me or my partner.
The jailing of political prisoners in the UK has been internationally condemned. But despite all the talk of overflowing prisons, not one politician is willing to state the fact that we need to be sending fewer people to prison. We have the highest incarceration rate in western Europe and it is almost twice what it was 30 years ago. The answer is not building more jails – I met so many others in prison who are no danger to society whatsoever. All that prison seems to achieve is a massive cost to the taxpayer and terrible conditions for each of us in the system.
During my time in prison I saw Israel launch invasions of two new states in Lebanon and Syria, order UN peacekeepers to get out of the way and ban their aid agencies, accusing them of terrorist activities. This state is becoming unhinged with many Israeli people, including families of hostages [taken in the 7 October 2023 attacks], stating that this is [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war and not theirs. But our political leaders continue to repeat the same rubbish about self defence. Everything our country has enabled, the mass killing and starvation of civilians, the flattening of entire towns and cities, has been only to protect the political career of a man wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes.
I’ve had no second thoughts on the action I took. It was long before the current war in Gaza, which has made it very clear that there are no lengths this government won’t go to to continue supplying and enabling Israel’s apartheid and genocide. Palestine Action was founded on that very principle: that it’s up to us to halt the supply of weapons and end the complicity.
