Tommy Robinson appeal latest updates: Judges retire to consider judgement on whether to free EDL founder from prison
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Judges are considering an attempt by English Defence League (EDL) founder Tommy Robinson to be freed from prison.
The far-right leader, who is appearing under his real name of Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed in May after he broke blanket reporting restrictions on an ongoing set of trials by discussing them in a Facebook Live video.
A judge at Leeds Crown Court said Robinson admitted contempt of court and jailed him for a total of 13 months.
But his barrister told the Court of Appeal Robinson should be freed from prison and have his sentence "quashed" after arguing that criminal procedure rules had been broken.
Jeremy Dein QC argued that a judge at Leeds Crown Court should have adjourned the case to give Robinson further time with lawyers, and to respond to each allegation in detail, rather than jailing him within hours of the video being broadcast.
He also argued that the 13-month sentence handed down was "manifestly excessive" and may have been lower if a barrister was able to properly mitigate on his behalf.
The Lord Chief Justice said he and two other judges would consider the submissions and hope to come to a judgement by the end of July.
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Robinson was previously spared jail after committing contempt in another case in Canterbury in 2017, on the condition he committed no further crimes.
Judge Geoffrey Marson QC activated that three-month term and added 10 months for the new offence, telling Robinson that he risked causing a trial to collapse.
Protesters gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London ahead of the hearing on Wednesday, which was before the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the Rt Hon Sir Ian Burnett, Mr Justice Turner and Mrs Justice McGowan DBE.
They may choose to reserve judgement to a later date after hearing evidence.
It comes a day after reports that lobbying by the far-right Breitbart news website caused the US ambassador for international religious freedom to raise Robinson's case with the British government.
US Senator Sam Brownback reportedly told British ambassador Sir Kim Darroch the UK should be more “sympathetic” to the former leader of the EDL and warned Sir Kim that the Trump administration might publicly criticise its handling of the case.
Robinson has been forming links with the American alt-right, who characterise him as a “citizen journalist” and see imprisonment as a violation of freedom of speech.
Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart chairman who served as the White House chief strategist, has given his personal support to Robinson and former Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam has coordinated two “Free Tommy” rallies.
A neoconservative US think-tank said it was funding both Robinson's legal costs and two protests in London on 9 June and 14 July.
The June protest saw Robinson supporters perform Nazi salutes and attack police, while Saturday's event - which merged with a pro-Trump march - saw demonstrators blockade a bus driven by a Muslim woman and several arrests.
MPs and campaigners warned that far-right extremists were rallying around his imprisonment to develop a new “racist street movement” with international support.
It comes as statistics show more extreme right-wing terrorists are being arrested and jailed than ever before, with the head of MI5 warning that their brand of extremism was “rearing its ugly head” once more.
Prosecutors and police said Robinson’s posts radicalised Darren Osborne, the terrorist who ploughed a van into a group of Muslim worshippers in Finsbury Park last year.
A barrister appointed by the Attorney General to assist the court is now making submissions.
He says that so far as the finding of contempt is concerned, the court must ask whether any procedural failings affected the findings.
The barrister says that judges in Canterbury and Leeds could have referred Robinson to the Attorney General but were dealing with "immediate" matters.
He said the procedural requirements in both cases make provision for both criminal and civil contempt of court.
He says the "juristiction to proceed is not founded by the rules and...there is nothing in them to suggest an order or finding of contempt is invalidated if a particular aspect of the rules is not complied with."
The barrister says Robinson's team's argument that any violation of criminal procedure rules would invalidate his contempt convictions is "incorrect", when "any irregularity had no bearing on the outcome of the case"
The barrister says there is "no dispute" that filming inside a court is illegal - whether under Contempt of Court Act or the Criminal Justice Act - which is what Robinson did in Canterbury.
He says in Leeds, the breach of the Section 4 (2) order banning reporting is contempt.
The barrister, Louis Mably QC, says the case is a question of "substance not form".
He says that in Leeds "the court was plainly faced with an immediate problem and it was right in the first instance to explore the matter, first to stop whatever he was doing and secondly to ensure the material was deleted."
Mr Mably says the proceedings could have been adjourned but even if it had and the precise breaches of the order had been clarified "it is unlikely that any adjournement could have led to a finding there was no contempt"
Mr Mably acknowledges that an adjournment "may have had an impact on sentence".
The Lord Chief Justice says the judge's sentencing remarks in Leeds included factors not in Section 4 (2), but the barrister says they may have been considered to "aggravate" the seriousness of the breach.
Mr Mably says that if a judge has inflated a sentence "according to immaterial considerations" it does not invalidate the finding of contempt itself.
The Lord Chief Justice says the barrister is not here to oppose the application but "for the assistance of the court".
Mr Mably is acting in a neutral capacity and is being asked about how important it is to put the content of the breach to the defendant.
He says it is "important" because otherwise the person cannot "meet the allegation against him", adding: "It is a fundamental part of the procedure."
He says that the judge in Leeds had identified the content "in a general sense" and says the court must define if the identification of the offence was sufficient.
"It is a fundamental part of any procedure that a person under investigation knows what he is accused of."