By Canadian Press

Founder of far-right English Defense League gets 18 months in prison for court contempt

Oct 28, 2024 | 7:25 AM

LONDON (AP) — The founder of the far-right English Defense League was sentenced Monday to a year and a half in prison for violating a court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, admitted in Woolwich Crown Court that he was in contempt of court for violating a 2021 court injunction by giving interviews broadcast on YouTube, a podcast and in a documentary he presented during a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in July that was also posted on his X account and widely viewed.

Justice Jeremy Johnson said Robinson’s breaches of the injunction were not “accidental, negligent or merely reckless” but a “planned, deliberate, direct, flagrant breach of the court’s orders.”

“Nobody is above the law. Nobody can pick and choose which injunctions they obey and those they do not,” Johnson said. “It is in the interests of the whole community that injunctions are obeyed.”

Robinson had been ordered not to repeat false allegations that a teen, Jamal Hijazi, had bullied and threatened other students at school. Hijazi successfully sued him for libel and was awarded 100,000 British pounds ($130,000) in damages.

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Robinson violated the injunction 10 times since 2023, including by airing a documentary, titled “Silenced,” he made on the case that has been viewed more than 44 million times.

Attorney Aidan Eardley, on behalf of the Solicitor General, said that disobeying a court order created a risk that others might not respect court orders.

“The harm here is that millions of people see Mr. Yaxley-Lennon thumbing his nose at the court,” Eardley said.

Robinson, 41, who founded the nationalist and anti-Islamist EDL, is one of the most influential far-right figures in Britain. Thousands of people rallied in support of him on Saturday in central London at a Unite the Kingdom rally that he had planned but wasn’t able to attend because he had been jailed.

His supporters packed the gallery in court and crowded outside the courthouse for the hearing.

Robinson, who stood in the dock in a gray suit and white shirt, looked at the dozens of people in the gallery and shrugged his shoulders as the sentence came down.

Robinson was jailed Friday on a warrant issued after he failed to appear for the court contempt hearing in July and left the country.

While he was out of the country — in Cyprus for at least part of his time away — he was blamed for using his social media presence to stir up protests that turned into a week of rioting across England and Northern Ireland this summer. The demonstrations turned violent after social media users falsely identified the suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed three young girls in the seaside community of Southport as an immigrant and a Muslim.

Robinson has been jailed in the past for assault, contempt of court and mortgage fraud.

He was banned from Twitter in 2018, but he was allowed back after Elon Musk took over the social network and later renamed it X. He now has 1 million -followers.

Brian Melley, The Associated Press