Tommy Robinson could have caused Huddersfield grooming trials to collapse and child rapists go free
‘If jurors get to know of this video, I will no doubt be faced with an application to discharge the jury,’ judge said before jailing Robinson in May
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Grooming trials that saw the largest gang ever convicted for years of sexual abuse were almost derailed by Tommy Robinson as he claimed to “expose” the crimes.
A judge paused jury deliberations in the second of three linked trials over fears that the far-right figurehead’s live stream of the case from outside Leeds Crown Court would result in the case collapsing and rapists going free.
Hundreds of thousands of people had watched Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, talk for more than an hour about Muslims and “jihad rape gangs” on 25 May.
The video violated blanket reporting restrictions imposed by Judge Geoffrey Marson QC in March to prevent defendants claiming juries had been prejudiced against them by reading about previous trials.
The order was due to automatically lift at the end of the third trial and was deemed “necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in these proceedings”.
Police arrested Robinson outside the court as he continued to film, having confronted some of the defendants as they arrived, and he was brought before Judge Marson.
A lawyer representing the 35-year-old told the court he knew of the reporting restriction but believed he had not violated it, adopting an “I don’t care” attitude.
“The vast majority of what you were saying, particularly at the beginning at the part I saw, was reference to cases like this, to Asian men, to the grooming of 11-year-old girls and the number of cases like this,” Judge Marson told Robinson.
“No one could possibly conclude that that was likely to be anything other than highly prejudicial to the defendants in the present trial … if the jurors in my present trial get to know of this video, I will no doubt be faced with an application to discharge the jury.”
Judge Marson jailed Robinson for 13 months for contempt of court, but the Court of Appeal later overturned his finding because of procedural failings that “gave rise to unfairness”.
Robinson was ordered to face a new hearing over the alleged contempt, which will start on Tuesday.
Judge Marson initially imposed another reporting ban on reporting proceedings against Robinson, but it was lifted days later following a challenge by The Independent and local media.
The jury was allowed to resume deliberations and reached their verdicts on 5 June, finding eight men guilty of offences including child rape, abduction and trafficking.
In total, the three trials saw 20 men convicted and 16 have so far been jailed for a total of 220 years.
Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor who led the Rochdale grooming trial, said: “This was not the work of Tommy Robinson and his cohorts, his lot nearly derailed it again. It was the bravery of victims and professionals.”
He previously told how the Rochdale case was “nearly lost” over far-right activity, which caused defence lawyers to claim the jury had been prejudiced.
“We had to fight to persuade court to allow trial to continue,” Mr Afzal wrote on Twitter. “Those criminals came close to being freed and victims came close to getting no justice. Juries must decide on evidence, not on your opinion.”
Robinson escaped another jail sentence for contempt last year, after illegally filming inside Canterbury Crown Court during a gang-rape case.
The jury was deliberating on allegations against four defendants when he posted footage calling them “Muslim child rapists” online on 8 May 2017.
The judge in that case ensured they were taken out of a different exit and told Robinson he had used “pejorative language in his broadcast which prejudged the outcome of the case and could have had the effect of substantially derailing the trial”.
Judge Heather Norton said at the time: “This contempt hearing is not about free speech. This is not about the freedom of the press.
“This is not about legitimate journalism; this is not about political correctness; this is not about whether one political viewpoint is right or another. It is about justice, and it is about ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly.”
She sentenced Robinson to three months’ imprisonment but suspended the sentence for 18 months, meaning it would not come into effect unless he committed further offences.
“You will now be under no illusions whatsoever as to what you can and cannot do,” the judge told Robinson.
The far-right figurehead, who founded the English Defence League (EDL), now styles himself as a reporter and posts videos to his own website after leaving right-wing Canadian website Rebel Media.
Robinson frequently claims to have “exposed” grooming gangs across Britain, but his claims have been dismissed by survivors and observers pointing out his reliance on news reports for information.
Sammy Woodhouse, a survivor of the Rotherham abuse who campaigns to raise awareness of sexual exploitation, said victims still feel ignored.
But she said that Robinson and other far-right figures should not focus on abuse only by people they perceive to be Muslim.
“If they are going to talk about child rape, about the system and the failures, then they should be talking about it as a whole and not just by Pakistani Muslims,” she told Newsnight.
“The majority paedophiles are actually white males.”
Although a large portion of convicts in high-profile grooming cases appear to be of Pakistani origin, investigations have found offenders from a wide range of backgrounds.
Not all convicts in have been Muslim or Asian, while not all of their victims were white.
Last year, a judge sentencing a grooming gang in Newcastle said they picked out their victims “not because of their race, but because they were young, impressionable, naive and vulnerable”.
In Huddersfield, girls as young as 11 were groomed, raped and abused and trafficked across the region between 2004 and 2011.
They were lured into what they believed to be genuine relationships with abusers before being plied with alcohol or drugs and abused, and kept silent with threats and violence.
The abuse could be reported for the first time on Friday after a reporting ban was lifted by the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Guy Kearl QC.
The home secretary has launched an inquiry into the potential “cultural drivers” behind grooming gangs.
“There will be no no-go areas of inquiry,” the home secretary said last month. “I will not let cultural or political sensitivities get in the way of understanding the problem and doing something about it.”
Mr Javid said that perpetrators convicted in high-profile cases have been “disproportionately from a Pakistani background”, adding: “I have instructed my officials to explore the particular context and characteristics of these types of gangs and if the evidence suggests that there are cultural factors that may be driving this type of offending, then I will take action.”