English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 13 months after being arrested outside Leeds Crown Court last week, court officials have confirmed.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was sentenced to 10 months for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching the terms of a previous suspended sentence.

He was arrested on Friday for contempt of court after using social media to broadcast details of an ongoing trial which is subject to blanket reporting restrictions.

Reporting restrictions were also placed on details of Robinson’s sentence but were lifted following a legal challenge on Tuesday.

Following his arrest his supporters protested outside the gates of Downing Street, while others took to social media where they were supported by right wing sympathisers in the US. </s> The UK Central Criminal Court sentenced far-right activist Tommy Robinson to nine months in prison on Thursday for contempt of court over a video he livestreamed on social media back in May 2018 featuring defendants in a sexual grooming gang trial in breach of reporting restrictions, media reported

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th July, 2019) The UK Central Criminal Court sentenced far-right activist Tommy Robinson to nine months in prison on Thursday for contempt of court over a video he livestreamed on social media back in May 2018 featuring defendants in a sexual grooming gang trial in breach of reporting restrictions, media reported.

Robinson, who founded the anti-Islamic English Defence League movement in 2009 but later left it over what he described as "dangers of far-right extremism," was initially sentenced to 13 months in prison for filming defendants and making insulting comments about their Muslim background. In August 2018, the UK Court of Appeal, however, decided to free Robinson on bail. The case was later referred back to the attorney general.

Under the fresh verdict, he got six months for filming suspects involved in an ongoing trial then subject to blanket reporting restrictions and three more months for an earlier contempt, according to the Independent newspaper.

Given the time that he previously spent in prison, a judge reduced his sentence to 19 weeks, of which he will serve half before being allowed to go free, the media outlet specified.

Delivering the verdict, Judge Dame Victoria Sharp said that "nothing less than a custodial penalty would reflect the gravity of the conduct." She went on to note that the words Robinson used could have been interpreted by his audience as "an incitement" to harass the defendants, threatening to put at risk the course of justice.

Robinson, wearing a T-shirt that read "Convicted of Journalism," denied any guilt, maintaining that he had been unaware of breaching a reporting ban.

Soon after the verdict was announced, Robinson's supporters, who gathered outside the court, started hurling bottles at police. Several people have been reportedly arrested.

The defense now has 28 days to file an appeal.

In a comment to Sputnik, former UK Independence Party leader Gerard Batten called the verdict for Robinson an "absolute disgrace.

"I cannot believe I'm here in my own country, under a legal system that is one of the best in the world, in a free democratic country ... where we have been reduced to this because of the establishment's fear and submission to fundamentalist islam. And that they will victimize one of their own people in order to submit to it," he said.

According to the politician, the court should have let the activist walk out a free man because he has "already served a lot of time in prison, including time in solidarity confinement."

"They have said that they want to make an example of him and in my opinion they have shown up that this is an entirely malicious prosecution and a malicious conviction. The question now is what prison they will send him to. Are they going to put him in a safe prison or are they going to put him in one of those run by Muslim gangs where his life will be under threat and they'll have to put him back in solidarity confinement. And what a choice that would be. Solidarity confinement, which is going to damage him psychologically, or being out in the general population where he could be attacked or murdered," he argued.

Speculating on the essence of the conviction, Batten opined that Robinson "was outside a court doing what the mainstream media do all the time."

"He tried to establish if there were reporting restrictions, which he was told there weren't, and he made every reasonable effort to try and find out. He asked defendants going in to hear the sentence, hear their convictions, how they felt about the conviction ... the verdict ... which is something the mainstream media do all the time. Everything that he said regarding that case was in the public domain, but that's what he's been convicted on," he pointed out.

The politician concluded that, with such verdicts, the country was reducing itself "to the level of some tin-pot dictatorship or a satellite of the old Soviet Union," which was "enough to make anybody sick." </s> Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court.

The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday.

Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds Crown Court. In the video, he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.

Robinson pleaded guilty to contempt of court. He was arrested, charged and sentenced within five hours.

A court order is in place to prevent any reporting of the details of the trial in question. Another court order preventing reporting of Robinson’s arrest and the subsequent court proceedings was lifted on Tuesday after a challenge by Leeds Live and the London Independent.

The restriction was put in place temporarily to prevent reporting on the Robinson case from prejudicing the outcome of the first trial. It was lifted after a judge heard submissions that Robinson’s case was being widely discussed on social media. Right-wing activists claimed that the restriction amounted to state censorship.

In the video, Robinson attempted to film defendants entering the court and spoke about the case. The video was viewed more than 250,000 times.

Robinson’s arrest provoked protests in Whitehall on Saturday, which could not be reported by the media until now.

Supporters were seen carrying placards reading “#FreeTommy” and shouting “Shame on you”. – Guardian </s> Tommy Robinson jailed for contempt of court after Facebook live reporting outside criminal trial

Tommy Robinson, a prominent far-right activist in Britain, has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court, after live-streaming outside a criminal trial in violation of reporting restrictions, a court said.

Robinson was arrested at Leeds Crown Court in northern England, where he was broadcasting details of an ongoing trial on Facebook.

The 35-year-old appeared in court under his real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

He pleaded guilty on Friday to contempt of court and breaching the terms of a suspended sentence.

The trial Robinson live-streamed was covered by restrictions on what could be reported while it was underway — a common practice in Britain, designed to protect the impartiality of the jury.

Judge Geoffrey Marson told Robinson that his actions could be "highly prejudicial to the defendants in the trial".

He said Robinson had broadcast details of the defendants and the charges they faced, including some wrong information.

Robinson was earlier convicted of contempt of court in May 2017 for broadcasting at a rape trial and given a three-month suspended sentence.

The judge in that case told him that he would be imprisoned if he committed "a further contempt of court by similar actions".

Robinson also has previous convictions for assault, fraud and other offences.

The judge in Leeds imposed a reporting restriction on Robinson's latest conviction, but it was successfully challenged on Tuesday by media outlets.

Robinson, founder of the now-defunct English Defence League, is a self-styled journalist and commentator who issues a steady stream of anti-Muslim statements online.

News of his arrest had sparked calls on social media for his release, and a demonstration on Saturday outside the British prime minister's Downing Street office.

AP </s> British far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson was jailed for contempt of court on Thursday, having live-streamed a confrontation with defendants in a criminal trial that was subject to reporting restrictions.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was sentenced to nine months in jail, minus the time he has already spent in prison, reducing his term to 19 weeks, of which he will serve half before being released.

“Nothing less than a custodial penalty would properly reflect the gravity of the conduct we have identified,” judge Victoria Sharp said at the Old Bailey in London, England’s central criminal court.

“The respondent cannot be given credit for pleading guilty. He has lied about a number of matters and sought to portray himself as the victim of unfairness and oppression.”

Sharp and fellow judge Mark Warby last Friday found Robinson had acted in contempt when broadcasting footage of defendants arriving at Leeds Crown Court in northern England in May 2018.

He live-streamed footage of men accused of the sexual exploitation of young girls, while the jury in the second of a series of linked grooming trials was considering its verdicts.

Reporting restrictions postponed the publication of any details until the end of all the cases, in a bid to ensure all defendants received a fair trial.

Robinson, 36, denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not believe he was breaching any reporting restrictions and had only referred to information that was already in the public domain.

Robinson was jailed for 13 months in May 2018 after being found in contempt of court on the day of the broadcast.

He served 10 weeks in prison before being freed after the original finding of contempt was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August.

But the case was then referred back to Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, who announced in March that it was in the public interest to bring fresh proceedings against Robinson.

“Posting material online that breaches reporting restrictions or risks prejudicing legal proceedings has consequences,” Cox said Thursday after the sentencing.

“I would urge everyone to think carefully about whether their social media posts could amount to contempt of court.”

Scores of Robinson’s supporters had gathered outside the court on Thursday, chanting his name and waving flags. He entered the building wearing a t-shirt saying “convicted of journalism”.

Robinson has 28 days to appeal against his conviction. </s> Tommy Robinson has been re-sentenced to nine months in prison following his reconviction for contempt of court.

Robinson had instructed his lawyer “to read out a series of past Contempt of Court findings against newspapers which (in summary) had not led to jail terms for editors or reporters accused of disrupting trials”, according to BBC reporter Dominic Casciani, but to no avail, with judges imposing a custodial term only one month shorter than his previous sentence, declaring that “the main purpose of the penalty is punishment and deterrence”.

Robinson was initially arrested, tried, and imprisoned within a matter of hours after livestreaming accused grooming gang members — later convicted — whose case was subject to reporting restrictions, but freed by appellate judges who ruled his initial hearing had been rushed and unfair.

Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox was given leave to relitigate the case, however, which he chose to do — resulting in Robinson being reconvicted, despite his defence team’s arguments that his behaviour was “not materially different to the behaviour we see outside courts day in and day” from mainstream media reporters.

The sentencing comes days after Mr Robinson appealed to U.S. president Donald Trump to grant him political asylum.

The activist has said the sentence following his previous, overturned convcition saw him “imprisoned for over 2.5 months in solitary confinement, held against my categorisation, moved to the highest Muslim population Category C prison, subjected to mental torture and constant threats and abuse and had all of my rights removed in the interest of prison safety”, and he believes his treatment by the courts and the state more generally is “political persecution”.

The nine months comprises six months for Robinson’s actions outside Leeds Crown Court, and the activation of a separate three-month suspended sentence for similar actions at Canterbury Crown Court.

Time served will be discounted, however, meaning Robinson should eligible for automatic release on licence after roughly two months. </s> Tommy Robinson was sentenced to nine months – six months plus three suspended for contempt of court over a video he broadcast on social media which featured defendants in a criminal trial.

Only immediate custody was commensurate with the seriousness of the case the court heard. Passing sentence today, judge Dame Victoria Sharp said of Robinson:

“He has lied about a number of matters and sought to portray himself as the victim of unfairness and oppression.”

The suspended committal order was activated in full. Total penalty was therefore was nine months — 39 weeks.

The former English Defence League (EDL) founder, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had already served 10 weeks: 138 days. So he has been imprisoned for 19 weeks but will be released halfway.

His lawyer was forced to apologise when he arrived late for court. replied Dame Victoria Sharp.

Anyone found in contempt of court can be jailed for up to two years, receive an unlimited fine, or both.

Robinson’s supporters thronged outside the Old Bailey – including attention-seeking controversialist Katie Hopkins, who he arrived with – and UKIP leader Gerard Batten, who addressed those gathered, insisting “ this is a political not a judicial decision.” Batten was greeted by chants of ” and “

Violent clashes erupted outside court after the sentencing was booed by Robinson’s supporters. Some pelted police with bottles and cans and officers donned their helmets.

Robinson was found to have committed contempt of court following a two-day hearing at the Old Bailey last Friday.

Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Warby found Robinson was in contempt in three respects when he filmed men accused of the sexual exploitation of young girls and live-streamed the footage on Facebook, in breach of a reporting ban, outside Leeds Crown Court in May 2018.

Speaking after sentencing, the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said:

“Today’s sentencing of Yaxley-Lennon serves to illustrate how seriously the courts will take matters of contempt.

“Posting material online that breaches reporting restrictions or risks prejudicing legal proceedings has consequences, and I would urge everyone to think carefully about whether their social media posts could amount to contempt of court.”

Giving reasons for the decision on Tuesday, Dame Victoria said Robinson encouraged in the video, which lasted an hour-and-a-half and was viewed online 250,000 times on the morning of the broadcast.

The judge said the words he used in the video would have been understood by viewers as “ to harass the defendants and “gave rise to a real risk the course of justice would be seriously impeded”.

The full judgement can be found here.

In an appearance on the far-right conspiracy theory website InfoWars on Monday, Robinson asked US President Donald Trump to grant him asylum in America, claiming he faced being killed in prison if he was jailed on Thursday.

And then seemed to contradict the plea, with another plea for cash donations from his supporters, in a video filmed ahead of his sentencing on Thursday. Robinson claimed: “I genuinely believe that the best thing they can do for our cause is send me to jail.”

“You’ve added more support for me and for my cause,” Robinson added, addressing judges who considered the case.

“Depending what decision you make on Thursday, my support will be stronger than ever … either way I win.”

Throughout the Old Bailey hearing, Robinson denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not believe he was breaching reporting restrictions and only referred to information that was already in the public domain.

But Dame Victoria and Mr Justice Warby found he was in contempt by breaching the reporting restriction imposed on the trial, by live-streaming the video from outside the public entrance to the court and by “ some of the defendants.

A number of Robinson’s supporters who gathered outside the court on Thursday and Friday reacted angrily after the verdict was announced.

Robinson, 36, from Luton, Bedfordshire, broadcast the footage while the jury in the second of a series of linked grooming trials was considering its verdict.

The video was eventually viewed 3.4 million times after being shared following his arrest.

A reporting restriction was in place which postponed the publication of any details of the case until the end of all the trials involving 29 people, in a bid to ensure all defendants received a fair trial.

Robinson was jailed for 13 months after being found in contempt of court on the day of the broadcast.

He served two months in jail before being freed after the original finding of contempt was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August 2018.

But the case was then referred back to the Attorney General, who announced in March that it was in the public interest to bring fresh proceedings against Robinson.

Dame Victoria and Mr Justice Warby gave permission for the Attorney General to bring a new case against Robinson at a hearing in May. </s> ‘Tommy Robinson’ has been sentenced to 9 months in prison for contempt of court, and has been ordered to pay the court’s costs. Developing… </s> This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League, has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court.

The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday. The case had been widely discussed on social media, where rightwing activists claimed that the restrictions amounted to state censorship.

Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds crown court. In the video he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.

Robinson pleaded guilty to contempt of court. He was arrested, charged and sentenced within five hours.

A court order is in place to prevent any reporting of the details of the trial in question. Another court order preventing reporting of Robinson’s arrest and the subsequent court proceedings was lifted on Tuesday after a challenge by Leeds Live and the Independent.

The restriction was put in place temporarily to prevent reporting on the Robinson case prejudicing the outcome of the first trial. It was lifted after a judge heard submissions that the order was already being widely violated by members of the public online.

Robinson attempted to film defendants entering the court and spoke about the case. The video was viewed more than 250,000 times.

Robinson’s arrest provoked protests in Whitehall on Saturday. Supporters were seen carrying placards reading “#FreeTommy” and shouting “shame on you”. A change.org petition calling for his release had received nearly 500,000 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.

Last year Robinson was given a suspended sentence for committing contempt during a rape trial in Canterbury, after he attempted to film the defendants. He had been told that he would go to prison if he broke the law again.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was sentenced to 10 months for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching the terms of the previous suspended sentence.

Robinson’s supporters had posted online that his arrest was an infringement of his freedom of speech. On Sunday Donald Trump Jr, the US president’s son, retweeted one of Robinson’s supporters, adding: “Don’t let America follow in those footsteps.”

The Dutch far-right opposition leader Geert Wilders posted a video on Twitter, filmed from outside the British embassy in The Hague, describing Robinson’s prison sentence as “an absolute disgrace”.

He accused the judge of issuing a gagging order and said that freedom of speech was being violated all over Europe. “The lights of freedom are going out,” he said. “The authorities are trying to silence us.”
British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson is sentenced to nine months in prison for contempt of court — minus time served equals about another 10 weeks in prison. Supporters attacked police and journalists following the court proceedings. Police say no new arrests were made.