Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months after he pleaded guilty to showing a defamatory video of a Syrian refugee during a protest last year.
Robinson, 41 whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, admitted today to breaching a High Court order which banned him from showing the video.
The far-right activist was successfully sued by the refugee in 2021 after he made a series of libellous allegations against him. Robinson was told by the High Court he was not allowed to air the video again.
But he defied the courts in July last year during a rally in Trafalgar Square and aired the video to his supporters.
During a two-day hearing at Woolwich Crown Court, lawyers for the Solicitor General claimed Robinson was ‘thumbing his nose at the court’ and ‘undermining’ the rule of law when he showed the video.
The documentary, called ‘Silenced’ – which shows a refugee being assaulted by another pupil in the playground at a school in Huddersfield – was broadcast despite a judge previously calling it contempt of court.
The victim successfully sued Robinson in for libel in 2021 and the former English Defence League leader was ordered to pay him £100,000 in damages plus costs.
But after screening the film, he challenged the authorities to ‘take him to court’, according to The Telegraph.
The second claim was issued in August, which concerned several further breaches, including playing the film to a demonstration in Trafalgar Square in central London earlier this year, which lawyers for the Solicitor General told an earlier hearing was a ‘flagrant’ breach of the court order.
The film remains pinned to the top of Robinson’s profile on social media site X, while he also repeated the claims in three interviews between February and June 2023.
Posting on his X account, he wrote: ‘I’ll be jailed for two years for showing the inconceivable truth.’
The Solicitor General issued two contempt claims against Robinson earlier this year, claiming he ‘knowingly’ breached the order on multiple occasions.
The 41-year-old appeared in the dock after being remanded in custody on Friday, wearing a grey suit and waistcoat with no tie.
At the start of a hearing, Aidan Eardley KC, for the Solicitor General, said a ‘resolution’ had been reached over the allegations, and read them out to the court.
When asked by Mr Justice Johnson whether he accepted he had committed the breaches, Robinson nodded and then replied ‘yes’.
Robinson attended Folkestone police station on Friday where he was remanded into custody and separately charged with failing to provide his mobile phone access code to police under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
On Saturday, thousands of his supporters gathered in central London for a protest which the political activist missed after he was remanded.
What is Contempt of Court?
‘Contempt of court’ refers to actions that risk unfairly influencing a legal case, potentially jeopardising a fair trial.
This can include disobeying or ignoring a court order, taking photos or shouting out in court, refusing to answer questions if you’re called as a witness or publicly commenting on a court case, for example on social media or online news articles.
Demonstrators carried placards reading ‘Two tier Keir fuelled the riots’ and chanted ‘We want Tommy out’ as they headed from Victoria station to Parliament Square.
Robinson was released on unconditional bail in July and subsequently left the country, with Adam Payter, representing the Solicitor General, telling the High Court there ‘was nothing to prevent him from doing so’.
Mr Justice Johnson issued a warrant for Robinson’s arrest but ordered that it not be carried out ‘until early October’ to allow Robinson time to indicate that he would attend the next hearing voluntarily or to apply to ‘set aside’ the warrant.
Robinson posted a video of himself arriving at Luton Airport on October 20 and said he was surprised he had not been arrested.
He applied to set aside the warrant but his application was dismissed by Mr Justice Johnson on Friday.
After he admitted 10 breaches of a High Court order during the hearing, Robinson was handed his 18 month sentence this afternoon.
Following Robinson’s admission of contempt at Woolwich Crown Court, Nick Lowles, CEO of campaign group Hope Not Hate, said: ‘Tommy Robinson knowingly and repeatedly broke a court injunction which forbid him from repeating libellous claims against a young Syrian refugee, Jamal Hijazi.
‘Tommy Robinson thought he was above the law but the team at Hope Not Hate painstakingly brought together an 86-page dossier of evidence of how Robinson travelled the world profiting from Jamal’s pain.
‘As recently as June, Tommy tried to deny any wrongdoing but when faced with our mountain of evidence, he doubled down playing the entire documentary containing the lies at his July 2024 demonstration in London.’
The group previously alleged that Robinson had ignored the injunction and repeated the allegations, providing a ‘dossier of evidence’ to the Attorney General’s Office, with the Solicitor General then taking legal action.
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