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. Yaxley-Lennon was accused by some media and politicians of inflaming tensions which led to days of rioting across Britain in late July after the murder of three young girls at a dance workshop in Southport. He has accused the media of lying about him.

Yaxley-Lennon’s lawyer Sasha Wass said of his libelous remarks: “He acted in the way that he did, and he accepts his culpability, because he passionately believes in free speech, a free press and the overwhelming desire that he has to expose the truth.”

Wass also said that ‘Silenced’ had been “effectively commissioned” through U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars company. Johnson sentenced Yaxley-Lennon to 18 months, less three days spent in custody after he was arrested on Friday. He will spend half in custody.

The judge said four months could be cut from the sentence if Yaxley-Lennon tried to “purge” his contempt, including by taking down copies of ‘Silenced’. As Johnson spoke, Yaxley-Lennon could be seen mouthing “nah” to the public gallery. The judge said of Yaxley-Lennon that “all his actions so far suggest that he regards himself as being above the law”. – AFP