UK Crown Prosection Service lose appeal over Kneecap rapper terror case

By Jess Glass, Press Association Law Editor

Kneecap rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh will not face a terror trial after judges at the UK High Court rejected a Crown Prosecution Service appeal against the decision to throw out the case.

The rapper, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, on November 21st, 2024.

But the case was thrown out in September last year, with chief magistrate Paul Goldspring ruling the proceedings were “instituted unlawfully”.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appealed against the decision at the High Court at a hearing in January, with the Kneecap rapper opposing the appeal.

In a judgment on Wednesday, two judges at the High Court upheld the decision and dismissed the CPS appeal.

Judge Goldspring had agreed with O hAnnaidh’s lawyers that prosecutors needed to seek the UK Attorney General’s permission to charge the rapper before informing him on May 21st that he would be charged with a terror offence.

This permission was sought and given the following day, which the court heard meant the charge fell outside the six-month time frame in which criminal charges against a defendant can be brought.

Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Linden, said in Wednesday’s decision that “the judge was right to hold that he had no jurisdiction to try any summary-only offence alleged to have been committed on that date”.

He said: “The respondent has not been tried for his alleged conduct on September 21 2025 and will not be tried.

“He has not been convicted, and he has not been acquitted.”