Tommy Robinson, Britain’s best-known far-right and anti-immigration activist, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday for defying a court order by repeatedly making false claims about a teenage Syrian refugee who he successfully sued for defamation. I received it.
Mr Robinson appeared in court and admitted he had breached a 2021 High Court order prohibiting him from repeating the defamation claims.
In announcing his sentence, Judge Jeremy Johnson said no one is above the law.
“The leak was not accidental, negligent or simply reckless,” he said, according to Reuters. “Each violation of the injunction was a deliberate, planned, and deliberate violation of the court’s order.”
Mr Robinson, 41, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was the founder of the English Defense League, a nationalist anti-Muslim group known for violent street protests in the late 2000s and 2010s.
He returned to the UK last week after several months abroad and turned himself in at a police station in Kent on Friday ahead of a court hearing in Woolwich, a town south-east of London.
The sentence came two days after thousands of his supporters took to the streets of London, sparking massive counter-demonstrations. Both incidents were largely peaceful, with heavy police presence and only a few arrests.
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