Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months for contempt of court after he admitted breaching an injunction preventing him from repeating libellous allegations against a Syrian refugee.
The 41-year-old, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was accused of “thumbing his nose at the court” in front of millions of people by breaching the 2021 High Court order on multiple occasions, including airing a documentary at a rally in Trafalgar Square in July.
In a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson sentenced him to 18 months in prison for the “flagrant” breaches of the court order.
Robinson appeared wearing a grey suit and waistcoat at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday. He stood with his hands on the edge of the dock and looked up at dozens of supporters, shrugging his shoulders, as the judge handed down the sentence. He saluted the public gallery and pumped his chest as he left the dock.
At the start of the hearing, Robinson confirmed he had admitted to 10 breaches of the order.
The court heard Robinson had been barred from repeating false allegations against a refugee called Jamal Hijazi. Mr Hijazi successfully sued Robinson for libel after the then-schoolboy was assaulted at Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in October 2018.
However, defamatory allegations against the schoolboy were repeated in six podcast and YouTube interviews undertaken by Robinson since February last year, including with Jordan Peterson.
A 90-minute documentary called Silenced, which “substantially repeats” the allegations was also published or aired on four occasions, including on Twitter/X – where it has been viewed by 44 million people – and to crowds at a rally in Trafalgar Square in July.
At one point the film was reshared by controversial far-right influencer Andrew Tate to 2.2 million followers.
Aidan Eardley KC, for the solicitor general, told the court: “The harm here is that millions of people could see Mr Yaxley-Lennon thumbing his nose at the court.”
He added: “This is not a case about Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s political views. It is not even directly a case about freedom of expression.
“It is a case about the disobedience to a court order, and the undermining of the rule of law that goes with that.”
Sasha Wass KC, for Robinson, told the court that the film’s production was funded by Infowars, a company run by American Alex Jones, who has claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.
She said her client accepts his culpability because he “passionately believes in free speech” and has an “overwhelming desire that he has to expose the truth”.
Ms Wass also said a 3.5-month period of solitary confinement due to his high profile status during a previous prison term had left Robinson with trauma, nightmares, severe anxiety, panic, irritability, sleep problems and other symptoms of depression.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Johnson said the activist has not shown any remorse and has been found to have committed contempt of court on three previous occasions, adding that he “regards himself as above the law”.
“The breaches were not accidental or negligent or merely reckless,” he said. “Each breach of the injunction was a considered, planned, deliberate, direct and flagrant breach of the court’s order.”
He continued: “Nobody is above the law. Nobody can pick and choose which injunctions they obey and those they do not.”
He said Robinson would serve half of the jail term in custody and his sentence could be reduced to 14 months if he “purges” his contempt, such as by removing the film from his Twitter/X account. However, Robinson shook his head and appeared to say “Nah” from inside the dock.
Robinson surrendered to 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.
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.
Anti-fascist campaign group Hope not Hate provided a dossier of evidence to the authorities over the breaches.
The group’s CEO Nick Lowles 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.”
