Shabana Mahmood urged to grant visa to former Weather Underground activist | Home Office

Human rights activists and celebrities together with the lawyer Helena Kennedy, the actor Harriet Walter and the theatre director Phyllida Lloyd have urged the Home Office to overturn its determination to refuse a visa to a former member of the unconventional US group the Weather Underground, saying her a long time of rehabilitation ought to depend in her favour.

Judith Clark, 77, was the inspiration for Walter’s portrayal of prisoners within the Donmar Warehouse all-female Shakespeare trilogy, together with Brutus in Julius Caesar and Prospero in The Tempest.

Clark had been invited to discuss rehabilitation and restorative justice at a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar in Stratford-upon-Avon subsequent month, however her utility to go to Britain was refused final week.

She had additionally hoped to attend the UK launch of her daughter Harriet Clark’s first novel, The Hill, on 5 November.

Kennedy stated that whereas the Home Office had guidelines governing visas for individuals with critical legal convictions, there was additionally ministerial discretion, which must be exercised in Clark’s case.

“This is a lady in her 70s who served an extended sentence for political activism, which concerned no violence on her half, and whose clear regret and distinctive works throughout the jail system led to her early launch,” she stated. “She was deemed to pose no risk to US society and in my opinion she poses no risk in anyway to the UK’s nationwide safety.”

Walter stated immigration guidelines designed to guard the general public ought to permit flexibility in distinctive circumstances equivalent to Clark’s. “There isn’t any different goal behind the brief go to she desires to make aside from to reward us together with her presence as a speaker in our post-show dialog and to rejoice her daughter’s first e book launch,” she stated.

Lloyd stated Clark had turn into a touchstone for the inventive staff’s understanding of repentance, redemption and rehabilitation throughout the making of the Donmar trilogy.

“To say she did her time and turned her life round is an understatement,” she stated. “To have her converse within the UK can be an inspiration within the realm of restorative justice.”

Clark joined the scholar motion in opposition to the Vietnam conflict within the late Sixties and have become concerned within the Weather Underground, a radical organisation that emerged from the American anti-war motion. She was later concerned within the May nineteenth Communist Organization, which pursued armed revolutionary exercise.

In 1983, she was convicted for her function as a getaway driver in an tried theft of a Brinks armoured truck in New York in 1981, throughout which a safety guard and two law enforcement officials have been killed. She was sentenced to a few consecutive phrases of 25 years to life.

In 2017, the then-New York governor Andrew Cuomo commuted her sentence, permitting her to hunt parole. She was launched in 2019, after serving 37 years.

During her incarceration at Bedford Hills correctional facility in New York, Clark helped set up an Aids training and help group, developed programmes to assist moms preserve relationships with their kids, raised service canine for veterans and first responders and helped construct a school training programme.

She has since labored in legal justice reform and help for previously incarcerated ladies. In 2025, she turned director of the Survivors Justice Project, which works to safe authorized reduction for survivors of home violence dealing with jail sentences.

Walter and Lloyd met Clark whereas researching their Shakespeare trilogy, which reimagined the performs as productions staged by ladies in jail. Walter stated Clark had helped her perceive Brutus, the politically conflicted character in Julius Caesar, who struggles with the ethical penalties of his actions. Her story additionally knowledgeable Walter’s portrayal of Prospero in The Tempest.

“By the time I met Judy she had developed into one of the exemplary and developed human beings I’ve ever met or am more likely to meet,” Walter stated.

The RSC has invited Clark to participate in a post-show dialogue entitled Can Art Save Lives?

It would additionally embrace an organization member launched to theatre after jail by the charity Clean Break.

Kennedy first met Clark greater than 30 years in the past at Bedford Hills whereas making a tv documentary about ladies in jail. “Her regret for her participation in legal conduct was very evident to all who have been concerned together with her,” she stated.

In her personal letter supporting her visa utility, Clark stated she had publicly disavowed her actions and apologised for the hurt she had contributed to a decade into her sentence. She spent the rest of her imprisonment making an attempt to show her regret into work benefiting the jail neighborhood, households and people harmed by crime.

Clark hoped to go to Britain from 4 to fifteen November together with her spouse, Cheryl Moch. Her daughter has stated that The Hill attracts on her personal expertise of visiting her mom all through her imprisonment. Despite their separation, she wrote, Clark had discovered methods to mom her.

A Home Office spokesperson stated: “It’s our longstanding coverage to not touch upon particular person circumstances.

“All purposes for entry clearance within the UK are rigorously thought-about on their particular person deserves, according to the Immigration Rules and based mostly on the data and proof offered by the applicant.”