UK anti-Islam activist ‘Tommy Robinson’ jailed for breaching injunction

LONDON: British anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, was jailed for 18 months on Monday after he admitted contempt of court by breaching an injunction made after he was successfully sued for libel.

Yaxley-Lennon was sued for libel at London’s High Court by Syrian refugee Jamal Hijazi and in 2021 was ordered to pay 100,000 pounds ($129,885) in damages. He was also made subject to an injunction preventing him from repeating the libel, which Yaxley-Lennon admitted repeatedly breaching between February 2023 and this July.

Sentencing Yaxley-Lennon at London’s Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Johnson said: “The breaches were not accidental or negligent or merely reckless. “Each breach of the injunction was a considered and planned and deliberate and direct and flagrant breach of the court’s order.”

Britain’s Solicitor General took legal action against Yaxley-Lennon over comments in online interviews and a documentary titled ‘Silenced’, which has been viewed millions of times and was played in London’s Trafalgar Square in July.

The Solicitor General’s lawyer Aidan Eardley said Yaxley-Lennon had been found in contempt on three separate occasions and was jailed for it in 2019. He also has separate criminal convictions.