London man jailed 15 years for bombing ULEZ camera with homemade explosive

Full report

According to a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) press release dated Oct. 2, Kevin Rees, 64, placed a metal cylinder packed with explosive powder next to a newly installed ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) camera on Willersley Avenue in Sidcup, south-east London, on the evening of Dec. 6, 2023, lit the fuse and ran. The blast hurled shrapnel into cars and homes and shook nearby houses; fortunately, no one was injured.

Rees was a committed anti-ULEZ campaigner whose social media was full of posts criticizing the scheme and celebrating damage to ULEZ cameras. He was arrested on Dec. 18, 2023; police found a price list for chemicals that could be used to make explosives plus two substances he had bought, and three working homemade stun guns, which are prohibited under the Firearms Act 1968.

On Jan. 28, 2026, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court found him guilty of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property, and three counts of possessing a prohibited weapon. On Oct. 2, the Old Bailey sentenced him to a total of 15 years' imprisonment, with a further year on licence; the three-year terms for the weapons counts run concurrently. The judge ruled the offence carried a "terrorism connection."

Bethan David, former Head of the CPS Counter Terrorism Division, said: "This was not an act of protest or momentary vandalism. This was a deliberate and dangerous attack involving a home made explosive device, carried out in a residential street and designed to destroy public infrastructure."