Human rights activists and celebrities including the lawyer Helena Kennedy, the actor Harriet Walter and the theatre director Phyllida Lloyd have urged the Home Office to overturn its decision to refuse a visa to a former member of the radical US group the Weather Underground, saying her decades of rehabilitation should count in her favour.

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

Clark had been invited to speak about rehabilitation and restorative justice at a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar in Stratford-upon-Avon next month, but her application to visit Britain was refused last week.

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

Judith Clark is escorted into Rockland county courthouse in New City, November 1981.…