Labour Party leader Keir Starmer's wife has told a court she felt “a bit sick” when she returned home to discover a pro-Palestine demonstration on her doorstep.
Victoria Starmer said she drove on when she saw a banner that read “Starmer stop the killing”. The demo also involved red hand prints and rows of children's shoes placed on the path to signify the children killed in Gaza.
She told Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday that she realised “people who were not agreeing with my husband” had gathered outside their home on April 9.
Activists from the group Youth Demand – Leonorah Ward, 21, of Leeds, Zosia Lewis, 23, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Daniel Formentin, 24, of Leeds – are on trial over the demonstration, charged with public order offences under Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 which covers the harassment of a person at their home address.
Giving evidence at the trial in person, Ms Starmer said: “I felt a bit sick, to be perfectly honest.
“I felt apprehensive and uncomfortable.”
Ms Starmer had just returned from a shopping trip with her son when they spotted the protesters, the court heard.
She drove around the corner before contacting her husband's office because she “didn’t want to stop and be obvious”, she told the court.
Asked by Andrew Morris, defending, if she knew it was a “peaceful protest”, she said: “It would look like a peaceful protest if it hadn’t been outside my home.”
Put to her by Laura O’Brien, representing Ward, that she did not want the added publicity from the demonstration, she said: “That was absolutely not in my mind.”
Metropolitan Police Sergeant Mark Upsdale said holding the protest outside somebody’s house, instead of outside the House of Commons or Mr Starmer's offices, was “inappropriate”.
He added: “I did not know if they were going to be there 10 minutes or a day.”
The court was shown footage shared on social media of the demonstration, which included clips of the three defendants speaking, and police body-worn footage of the protesters being arrested by officers outside the home.
Section 42 powers cover the harassment of a person at their home address if an officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.
Youth Demand describes itself as a “new youth resistance campaign fighting for an end to genocide”.
The same group sprayed Labour HQ with red paint, and later claimed that 11 people had been arrested in relation to that incident.
The three deny the charges, and the trial continues.
