Sarah Plaschkes

Sarah Plaschkes Wikidata (Judge)
"Plaschkes was one of the most unpleasant and dishonest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter" (Tony Greenstein).

Sarah Georgina Plaschkes is a British Circuit Judge who presided over the trial at Kingston Crown Court in August 2026 of Jewish anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein.

Reports on the Greenstein trial

BBC

On 21 August 2026, the BBC reported:

A Jewish activist has been cleared of inviting support for Hamas on social media after the October 7 attacks.

Tony Greenstein, 72, of Brighton, was charged with one count of inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation relating to three posts he made, following the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023.

Greenstein, whose father was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, described Gaza as a "human prison" and told Kingston Crown Court that while he believed the attack was "justified", he does not support Hamas.

The jury found Greenstein not guilty after just over two hours of deliberation.

In the social media posts, Greenstein wrote the line: "Please share. Full support for the Gaza ghetto uprising," the court heard.

Jurors were told the posts had links to a blog, which included the line that the prosecution had said amounted to inviting support for Hamas: "The time to fight is now. Whatever criticisms one can make of Hamas, we should congratulate them on this well planned and audacious attack on the Zionist enemy."

Greenstein argued "congratulating" Hamas was a figure of speech, and called the prosecution's assertion "absurd".

Giving evidence to the court on Thursday, Greenstein said Palestinians had been "locked up" for 57 years and said the "ruling class in this country... turn a blind eye to genocide".

He said: "When a colonial power holds another people down, they have the right to resist."

Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC warned Greenstein about treating the trial as a "political forum" and said the jury was "not concerned with events in the Middle East".

The National

The National added:

Giving evidence to the court on 20^th August, Greenstein said Palestinians had been “locked up” for 57 years and accused the judge of “turning a blind eye to genocide”.

He said: “It was a cage in which people lived.

“Imagine you could not escape 25 miles north of here and five miles wide, and imagine having to live there and not being allowed out.”

On multiple occasions during his evidence, Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC halted proceedings to ask Greenstein to stop talking about the history of Israel and Palestine.

Greenstein said to the Judge: “That’s the problem with the ruling class in this country, they turn a blind eye to genocide.”

Jewish Chronicle

The Jewish Chronicle reported:

Tony Greenstein has been cleared of inviting support for Hamas after the October 7 attacks, with the judge telling the court she had also considered a contempt of court charge against the veteran anti-Zionist activist.

Greenstein, 72, of Brighton, was charged with one count of inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation relating to three posts he made on October 7, 2023.

Greenstein described Gaza as a “human prison” and told Kingston Crown Court that while he believed the attack was “justified”, he does not support Hamas.

He said: “When a colonial power holds another people down, they have the right to resist.”

On Friday afternoon, a jury of five women and seven men found Greenstein not guilty after two hours and 11 minutes of deliberation.

The Canary

On 22 August 2026, The Canary reported:

Throughout the trial, defence barrister Lawrence McNulty pushed back against the judge’s interference and did so in a way that made the jury highly aware of how the bench was attempting to steer the case. McNulty eventually stood down so Greenstein could address the jury directly in person, while solicitor Zafar Iqbal remained in court to instruct him.

The tension between the bench and defence reached a flashpoint before police witnesses were questioned. Clearly nervous about where the defence might lead and seeking to control the narrative from the outset, Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC demanded to know in advance what line of questioning McNulty intended to pursue with the police. McNulty pushed back immediately, asking the judge whether she planned to micromanage the defence. He even offered to hand over a full list of his questions if the bench formally compelled him to do so, a demand Plaschkes ultimately refused. As the standoff threatened to turn into a complete stalemate, the jury was eventually brought back into the courtroom, where McNulty proceeded to ask the officer just a single question: getting the police to confirm that the transcript from Greenstein’s second interview was so short that it had obviously been heavily redacted.

The jurors were asked to leave the courtroom quite frequently so that Judge Plaschkes could attempt to impose limits on the defence team, which they consistently managed to get around. Significant context was actively kept from the jury. Large sections of Greenstein’s voluntary police interview transcripts were excluded, and over half of the controversial blog post was omitted from the prosecution’s extracts. Furthermore, dozens of historical articles attacking Hamas across the 3,500 posts on Greenstein’s platform — including pieces written by guest bloggers as well as mainstream outlets like the Washington Post and Haaretz that he regularly published — were ruled inadmissible as evidence to the court or jury.

Greenstein pointed out the huge gaps in what the jury was permitted to see, noting that had any of the posts on his platform expressed praise or support for Hamas, the Crown would have rushed to include every single one of them. Instead, because his site served as an open forum documenting decades of trenchant opposition to religious fundamentalism by both himself and contributing writers, those articles were deliberately kept out of evidence to bolster the state’s fragile prosecution. Greenstein and his legal team made sure the jury became aware of this censorship, a revelation that decisively turned the room against the heavy-handed approach of the judge and prosecution.

Judge Plaschkes repeatedly halted Greenstein’s evidence when he sought to provide historical context, warning him against treating the court as a “political forum” and claiming the jury was “not concerned with events in the Middle East”. Greenstein rebuked the bench directly, retorting that turning a blind eye to genocide is the exact problem with the ruling class in Britain. As the judge attempted to silence him further, Greenstein fired back that he was talking about human rights, including her own.

Plaschkes went on to direct the jury to disregard the excluded blog posts and strictly instructed them to ignore Greenstein’s mentions of the 14-year sentence hanging over him. At one point during the trial, Greenstein remarked directly to the bench that it felt as though the prosecution had two people working for it, implying that the judge was ganging up with the prosecution.

Tony Greenstein

On 23 August 2026, Greenstein blogged:

"I was facing a Judge, Sarah Plaschkes KC, who was determined to ensure that I was convicted for terrorism. Plaschkes was one of the most unpleasant and dishonest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.

"When the jury returned she made an extraordinary statement, fully knowing the jury’s verdict. She said that she had considered citing me for contempt of court but had decided against it as my speech was the ‘ramblings of an old man’. She was sure that the jury’s decision had not been affected by my speech!

"For a moment I thought that maybe they had found me guilty after all but when a jury returns after just 2 hours 11 minutes, it is very likely that they have all agreed on a not guilty verdict. When asked their verdict the foreman of the jury pronounced ‘not guilty’. It was, as you can imagine, an immense relief. Plaschkes exited the court full of fury signifying nothing apart from her own humourless and vapid character. It was like a bad smell disappearing.

"From the outset Plaschkes was determined to have me convicted but unfortunately for her I was determined not to let her get her way. I was not going to let her prevent me from getting through to the jury."