A Swansea woman has said she was left traumatised after being arrested under the Terrorism Act and held incommunicado for five days because her daughter was allegedly involved in an action against an Israeli arms company.
Emma Kamio, 57, who runs her own homeopathy and pilates business, was led away in handcuffs from her home in front of her son and neighbours and had three laptops and mobile phones seized, after a Palestine Action protest at an Elbit Systems UK building near Patchway on the outskirts of Bristol.
She was so traumatised by the incident in August that she has only recently been able to talk about it. Kamio said she was denied a duty solicitor for the first two days, and when she was transferred into the custody of counter-terrorism police she was held in a filthy cell, was searched repeatedly and the lights were left on all night, which she described it as “psychological torture”.
The former nurse, who also has a younger daughter aged 16, said: “I disappeared from my family for five days due to the abuse of the Terrorism Act. I’m an ordinary, hard-working, middle-class single parent whose life will never be the same. My story can happen to anyone due to the overpolicing and the repression that is happening right now in the UK.”
Kamio said she was initially taken to Swansea police station on 6 August and then to Bristol. She said her daughter Leona, 29, who lives in London, was brought from a different police station in Bristol and both were put in cages in the back of van, from which they could not see each other, for a high-speed blue-lights journey.
“I can’t tell you how terrifying that was,” Kamio said. “I just had one hand on the panel and my foot up against the front to brace myself, because there was no lap strap or seatbelt, and all I kept thinking was one wrong move and my [other] children lose their mother and sister in one hit. Just hearing a blue light and a siren [now], my whole stomach is back to that 120mph down the motorway.”
She said the cell in Newbury that she was initially placed in for two days had “the last occupant’s old dried faeces encrusted around the toilet”, and she was searched every time she left the cell (as was the cell) and again when she re-entered.
Kamio spent her time in custody worrying about her family, her clients and the impact on her business, which she had struggled to rebuild after the coronavirus pandemic.
“I knew I was going into shock,” she said. “I was fine for a couple of days and then I noticed I was shaking, I couldn’t stand. You feel like an animal in a cage once they take your belongings off you, that’s the only way I could describe it.
“They took five days to ascertain that I was innocent. I was eventually released without charge, without my belongings and without an apology, left on the streets of Newbury in my scrubs.”
Kamio said police had not returned the electronic devices – only one of which, a laptop, belonged to Leona – her clothes and expensive sandals she was wearing when arrested, or her jewellery, including platinum earrings her late mother had had made for her.
South Wales police said a complaint against officers was being investigated. Counter Terrorism Policing South East said Kamio was “held in conjunction with the relevant legislation and codes of practice for arrest and detention whilst in custody”. Thames Valley police said their cells were cleaned regularly and any concerns raised were addressed.
Leona Kamio has been charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary in relation to the protest, which the Crown Prosecution Service said had a “terrorist connection”. They are not offences under the Terrorism Act. In total, 18 people have been charged in relation to the 6 August incident.
