A 64-year-old retired electrical engineer has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for detonating an improvised explosive device that destroyed a traffic camera in south London, in a case that prosecutors and police linked to a broader wave of vandalism against the city’s vehicle-emissions enforcement network.
Kevin Rees was found guilty of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property, along with three counts of possessing a prohibited weapon, according to court reporting service Court News UK and the BBC.
Judge Anthony Bate handed down the sentence Friday at the Old Bailey central criminal court. Rees had denied all charges.
The prosecution centered on the destruction of a single camera in Sidcup, Kent, on December 6, 2023. The device, described in court as a metal cylinder packed with explosive powder and fitted with a simple fuse, detonated with enough force to damage passing vehicles and nearby homes. One fragment of the camera was propelled more than 100 meters into the upper section of a house, and prosecutors told the court it was “pure chance that no-one suffered serious injury, or worse.”
A Wider Campaign Against ULEZ Cameras
Rees was not alone in opposing the cameras. The network at issue is part of London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), an initiative championed by Mayor Sadiq Khan that charges owners of older, more polluting vehicles a daily fee to drive in and around the capital.
Critics have derided the devices as “climate spy cameras,” arguing the levies fall hardest on working-class tradespeople who depend on diesel vans and trucks for their livelihoods and cannot easily switch to hauling tools and materials on public transport.
A loose movement of anti-camera activists who call themselves “blade runners” took direct action against the infrastructure, often targeting cameras on the same day contractors installed them. Hundreds of cameras were cut down, had their cables severed, or were otherwise vandalized.
Rees, however, went further than vandalism, according to the court. He was also convicted of possessing three homemade stun guns resembling tasers.
Prosecution Evidence and Police Claims
During the investigation, counter-terrorism police arrested Rees in 2023 and raided properties associated with him. No explosives were found at his home, but police said they discovered a price list from an industrial chemical company, 100 grams of aluminium powder, and 330 grams of iron oxide. According to police, those substances “can be used to form low explosive compositions.”
London’s Metropolitan Police asserted there was a “terrorism connection” in the case, the BBC reported, noting that Rees was a “committed campaigner against the ULEZ scheme.” The court also heard that he had run Facebook groups that agitated against the camera rollout.
The intensity of the opposition to ULEZ enforcement became so pronounced that the London city government deployed mobile surveillance vans and, allegedly, bands of masked enforcers to protect the camera infrastructure from civil disobedience campaigns.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/10/03/terrorism-connection-briton-who-exploded-london-climate-tax-camera-sentenced-to-15-years/