Far-Right’s Robinson freed – and now faces a new trial
Appeal judges quash ‘flawed’ prison term for contempt
FAR-RIGHT activist Tommy robinson was freed on bail yesterday after successfully appealing his jail term for contempt of court.
The 35-year- old former English Defence League leader had been in prison for two months after illegally filming defendants as they arrived for a criminal trial at Leeds Crown Court in May.
However, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and two other judges at London’s Court of appeal quashed a ‘flawed’ finding of contempt under which he was given a sentence of 13 months in jail.
robinson – whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon – had originally pleaded guilty and will now face an Old Bailey trial relating to the alleged contempt and if he prejudiced the defendants’ right to a fair trial.
If he is found guilty, he could be returned to prison.
robinson left HMP Onley in rugby, Warwickshire, shortly after 3pm yesterday. Before being driven away, he said: ‘all the British media do is lie. I have a lot to say but nothing to you.
‘I want to thank the British public for all their support.’
Earlier the three judges had been urged to overturn separate contempt of court findings against robinson made at Leeds Crown Court and at Canterbury Crown Court.
at an earlier hearing last month, his lawyer Jeremy Dein claimed that ‘procedural deficiencies’ had led to ‘prejudice’. He also argued that the 13-month sentence was ‘excessive’ after robinson was jailed for filming those involved in a criminal trial and broadcasting the hourlong footage on Facebook, where it was watched 250,000 times within hours.
Lord Burnett – giving reasons for the Court of appeal’s decision relating to the Leeds court allegation – said that once robinson ‘ had removed the video from Facebook’ there was ‘ no longer sufficient urgency to justify immediate proceedings’.
The court agreed that the judge at Leeds should not have commenced contempt proceedings that day and Lord Burnett added that ‘ no particulars of the contempt were formulated or put to the appellant’ and there had been ‘a muddle over the nature of the contempt being considered’.
In Leeds, robinson received a ten-month sentence for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching a previous suspended sentence.
robinson had breached court orders and avoided jail in May last year when he similarly broadcast footage of a trial in Canterbury of four men later convicted
Free man: Tommy Robinson leaves HMP Onley yesterday of the gang rape of a teenage girl. The judge on that occasion gave him a three-month suspended sentence and told him his punishment was about ‘ justice and ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly’.
Yesterday the three Court of appeal judges said they were dismissing robinson’s appeal in respect of the contempt finding at Canterbury, before Lord Burrell turned to the Leeds case and added: ‘We are satisfied that the finding of contempt made in Leeds following a fundamentally flawed process, in what we recognise were difficult and unusual circumstances, cannot stand. ‘We allow the appeal and remit the matter to be heard by a different granted judge. bail The pending appellant the rehearing. will be That bail will be conditional.’ robinson’s supporters burst into a round of applause when the bail decision was announced, before Lord Burnett ordered them to be ‘silent’ as he continued to read the ruling. Later a statement from Carson Kaye solicitors – who represent robinson – read: ‘The rule of law and the right to a fair hearing are fundamental to every individual and this ruling is an example of the procedural safeguards of our system, and its potential for protecting every citizen equally.’
Outside the Court of appeal in central London, rival groups of robinson supporters and ‘Stand Up To racism’ protesters repeatedly chanted.
Both groups contained about 30 people and were outnumbered by 60 watching police officers who kept them apart.
robinson supporter David Scott, 59, from Tilehurst, near reading, said: ‘It is a brilliant result. Tommy should never have been in prison in the first place. He was the victim of a kangaroo court.’
as he spoke, supporters chanted to the tune of the Three Lions song: ‘Tommy’s coming home.’ anti-racism protesters countered with: ‘Tommy robinson, go to Hell – take your Nazi friends as well.’
‘I want to thank the British public’