Tommy Robinson admits contempt of court
Robinson admitted multiple breaches of a High Court injunction at a hearing on Monday.
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Tommy Robinson has admitted committing contempt of court by repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, in breach of an injunction.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, admitted breaching the High Court order made in 2021 when he appeared at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday.
Those who commit contempt of court can be jailed for up to two years, fined, or both.
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 wearing a grey suit and waistcoat with no tie, after being remanded in custody on Friday.
At the start of the hearing, Aidan Eardley KC, for the Solicitor General, said a “resolution” had been reached over the allegations, and read them out to the court.
Asked by Mr Justice Johnson whether he accepted he had committed the breaches, Robinson nodded and then replied “Yes”.
Robinson had been barred from repeating false allegations against then-schoolboy Jamal Hijazi, who successfully sued him for libel.
The Solicitor General issued the first contempt claim against Robinson in June this year, claiming he “knowingly” breached the order on four occasions.
Lawyers previously told a judge that the breaches included Robinson having “published, caused, authorised or procured” a film titled Silenced, which contained the libellous allegations, in May last year.
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.
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.
The second claim was issued in August, concerning six 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.
Mr Eardley told the court that the second claim was issued after “continuing concerning behaviour by Mr Yaxley-Lennon”.
He continued that the film was viewed “very extensively”, including being seen by 2.2 million people after being reposted by Andrew Tate, and said in written submissions that by the time the second claim was issued, it “had received 44m views on X alone”.
The harm here is that millions of people could see Mr Yaxley-Lennon thumbing his nose at the court
Mr Eardley said: “Because of the nature of the film is to effectively re-run the case that failed at trial, it substantially repeats all the allegations made at trial.”
He claimed that all of the paragraphs of the injunction were breached “at one point or another” by the film.
Mr Eardley said in written submissions that the court “can be sure that the defendant was responsible for the publication of the film” and “also intended that it should be shared as widely as possible via other channels”.
In court, he said it was Robinson’s “declared intention to disobey the order”, adding: “It is a continual breach.
“This material is still out there.
“He could take it off Twitter if he wanted to.”
Mr Eardley continued: “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.”
Robinson could be seen to laugh, shake his head and silently mouth words to himself throughout the hearing, and at times stood up in the dock to listen to proceedings.
The case comes after he was successfully sued by Mr Hijazi, after the then-schoolboy was assaulted at Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in October 2018.
After a clip of the incident went viral, Robinson made false claims on Facebook, including about Mr Hijazi attacking girls in his school, leading to the libel case.
Mr Justice Nicklin ordered Robinson to pay Mr Hijazi £100,000 in damages and his legal costs, as well as making the injunction preventing Robinson from repeating the allegations he made against the then-teenager.
On Friday, Robinson attended Folkestone police station and was 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.
The hearing continues.