The prisons are bursting but it seems there is room for at least one more convict. Tommy Robinson has today been jailed for 18 months after admitting contempt of court by repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee. Robinson admitted ten breaches of a High Court order made in 2021 during a hearing in Woolwich Crown Court, with lawyers for the Solicitor General accusing him of ‘undermining’ the rule of law. Barristers for Robinson said it was his ‘principles that have brought him before the court’ – which is, er, one way of looking at it.
Today’s hearing was the culmination of a five-year series of events which began in October 2018. A video went viral that month showing how Jamal Hijazi, a Syrian in West Yorkshire, had been attacked by another teenager at school. Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – then posted his own response to his Facebook followers alleging that his investigation had established that Hijazi was a violent thug, a claim that was untrue. The Yaxley-Lennon video spread widely, with the Syrian teenager and his family subsequently receiving death threats.
Three years later, Hijazi won £100,000 in damages after the High Court ruled the Yaxley-Lennon’s claims against him had amounted to defamation. The court imposed an injunction on him, banning the anti-Islam campaigner from making the false claims again. But in February 2023, Yaxley-Lennon began repeating the claims and went on to post online a film claiming he had been ‘silenced’ by the state. The film in question may have been viewed at least 47 million times, culminating in Yaxley-Lennon showing the film to thousands of his supporters in Trafalgar Square, before leaving the country the next day.
Aidan Eardley KC, for the solicitor general, told the court that Yaxley-Lennon had intended to repeat the false allegations, despite the injunction, and then take ‘evasive’ measures. Wonder if he will be up for early release eh?
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