TOMMY ROBINSON’S
PROSECUTION TO CONTINUE!
Unfortunately my work commitments would not allow me to attend on
Tuesday to support Tommy Robinson in what I thought likely to be his hour of
trial.
Had I however seen his witness statement, which I set out below,
then I would have thought it likely that his case would not be tried on Tuesday
because he clearly now is not going to plead guilty and is making statements of
fact which the Court would want challenged in cross-examination.
The Court’s evidence rule being that if it were not to be challenged in
cross-examination, his statements of fact would have to have been accepted by
the Court. The referral by the Judge therefore to bring in the
Attorney General (the State’s legal department), was not a decision that, in
the long run, is definitely going to be in Tommy Robinson’s
favour. A more likely reading would appear to be that the Judge
wants to see the truthfulness of Tommy Robinson’s witness statement to be
challenged in Court.
I have seen interviews with Tommy Robinson where he is saying that he
doesn’t think it is right or consistent with previous practice for him to be
sent to prison for Contempt of Court. I agree with him that his
treatment seems, on the face of it, to have been harsh. It also comes
on a long track record of improper official and police
harassment. This is someone who has shown great bravery in breaking
the story of the many Pakistani Muslim child rape gangs operating in this
country. This was disgracefully unchecked by many of the officials whose job it
was to look after the public and/or the girls who were shamefully and
appallingly mistreated.
However, from a legal point of view, Tommy’s problem is that he was
serving a suspended jail sentence with a term of 6 months in the event that he
was convicted again of Contempt of Court. It follows therefore, as
night follows day, that if he is reconvicted when his case comes back for trial
he will be going back to prison. The absolute legal minimum sentence
for him, which applies automatically, is that his 6 month jail sentence is to
be served.
I think it unlikely however that any Judge convicting him of a second
contempt, within the period of his first suspended prison sentence, wouldn’t
give him further immediate custodial time to serve for the second
offence.
The maximum period for the second offence is 2 years
imprisonment. In my opinion, a further jail sentence is highly
unlikely to approach this maximum, since this is by no means the most serious
of contempts. I would however have thought that the Court would
perhaps want to assert its authority and at the same time not to provoke
disorder in the way of demonstrations. My guess would therefore be
that Tommy would serve a few more weeks.
In the meanwhile on Sunday an interesting article was published in the
Sunday Times, a paper which has become less and less of a “Journal
of Record” and more and more openly propagandistic for the globalists,
internationalist, British Political Establishment.
Personally I have also found it disappointing to see the author, Andrew
Gilligan, slip into the rut of being a bog standard main-stream media
journalist after his glory days attacking Blairs’ Iraq War “dodgy dossier”. He
does however have some interesting information in the article, which I am told
is backed by those in the know! What do you think?
Here is the Sunday Times article:-
Tommy Robinson’s ‘massive’ jail bonus: publicity
The far-right leader expects to be imprisoned this week for ‘telling the truth
about Islam’. It should bring a big payday too
Andrew Gilligan
October 21 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
The far-right figurehead who styles himself Tommy Robinson says he has sacked
his lawyers and intends to get himself sent back to jail when he appears in
court this week for a contempt hearing.
Former assistants to Robinson said he scooped a “massive payday” when he was
jailed for contempt in May, earning huge public visibility and hundreds of
thousands of pounds in donations. Robinson was jailed for 13 months after
confronting and filming men of Pakistani origin outside a court, where they
were on trial for their alleged parts in Britain’s biggest sex grooming gang.
On Friday it emerged that the men were among 20 convicted as members of a gang
that subjected girls as young as 11 to an “inhuman” campaign of rape and sexual
abuse in Huddersfield. The judge, Geoffrey Marson QC, said the footage, which
Robinson live-streamed on Facebook, risked prejudicing the trial and
jeopardised other cases against the gang.
It is believed that a return to prison would gain further money and attention
for Robinson, 35, who was released on appeal in August pending the hearing on
Tuesday. In May, Robinson admitted the contempt and apologised — but he now
appears to have recanted.
In a video interview with PI News, an obscure German website, he said: “I
sacked my solicitors because they tried to broker a deal where I apologise and
I admit guilt, and then if I do that then I go home.
“And I said, I’m never going to do that. . . . They were working for the other
side, that’s what I felt. This is a historic moment, and I want to speak and
stand by my convictions. So I’m going to stand up in court and read a statement
. . . that tells the truth about Islam . . . I’d rather go to jail for the next
25 years than accept guilt for telling the truth . . . I am going to lay the
gauntlet down to the government. . . . When you read what I’m going to say in
court, I’m calling all of them out . . . I know 100% I am going to jail.”
Robinson was speaking after receiving the “European patriot of the year” award
at a conference in Bavaria organised by the hard-right magazine Compact. In his
acceptance speech, he said: “German people for too long have lived in the guilt
of Adolf Hitler. Do not live in the guilt of Angela Merkel.”
The conference, on September 29, brought together key figures on the European
far right, including Lutz Bachmann, the founder of Pegida, Martin Sellner, from
the Generation Identity movement, leaders of the Alternative for Germany party
and a representative of the Italian leader, Matteo Salvini. Compact has been
funded by the Kremlin-created Institute for Democracy and Co-operation.
A former assistant to Robinson, who had access to his Stripe online payment
processing account, claimed it contained £2m after his jailing and appeal,
thanks to a flood of donations, mostly small amounts. Another former assistant,
Lucy Brown, told The Sunday Times in August that Robinson operated a “business”
in which “your outrage, valid as it is, will be monetised as such”.
Robinson recently moved into a £950,000 house in an upmarket village in
Bedfordshire. The detached, gated property has four bedrooms, a two- bedroom
annexe and a double garage.
John Carson, of Carson Kaye, Robinson’s solicitor for the August appeal,
refused to comment last night. The firm described Robinson as a client in a
tweet two days before the German interview.
It is understood Robinson may have been referring not to Carson but to his
barrister in the August appeal, Jeremy Dein QC, who has parted company with
Robinson and did not represent him at a brief interim hearing last month.
Dein disputed he was sacked, saying he “withdrew for professional reasons”.
Robinson did not return messages asking for comment. In a video on his Facebook
page on Friday, after the rape convictions were reported, he repeated that he
would be “convicted on Tuesday”.
Here is the published text of Tommy Robinson’s Witness Statement:-
IN THE
CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT IN THE MATTER OF THE CONTEMPT OF COURT ACT 1981
IN THE MATTER OF STEPHEN YAXLEY
LENNON
WITNESS STATEMENT OF STEPHEN YAXLEY
LENNON
I, Stephen Lennon, journalist, of an
address known to the court and of Luton, will say as follows:
17.
I am the defendant in these contempt proceedings, and the Court has served
me with two allegations of contempt against me. This is one more than I faced
in the Crown Court at Leeds.
18. In relation to the first
allegation, breaching the order of the court, which requires as I understand it
an intention to interfere with the administration of justice, I would like to
say this.
19. Firstly, I would like to assure
the court that undermining the court’s authority or interfering with the administration of justice was never my intention. I
believed I acted in good faith within the parameters of the section 4 reporting
restriction in place. The information I provided was in the public domain, factual and relevant but did
not provide any details of the trial proceedings other than what had already
been reported previously and was readily available online. I rely on the
documents in my bundle as examples of what had previously been reported.
20. When I arrived at Leeds Crown
Court that morning I could not obtain any specific details of the reporting
restriction order. I do not believe there is a website which holds such
details, so I researched online and reviewed the reporting restriction guidelines
provided. They state that the court should include details of reporting
restrictions on the court listings both online and in court and also provide a
notice on the door of the court. My solicitors have photographic evidence to
show that the court did not follow these guidelines that day and had no details
listed anywhere of a reporting restriction for that case. This is also in the
bundle. The only time the notification about reporting restrictions was
available was later that afternoon after the Court had convicted me and sent me
to prison. Only then did the Court follow the guidelines and list a reporting
restriction against the court listings for both the grooming case and my
subsequent case.
21. After my previous experience
with contempt of court in Canterbury I went out of my way to ensure I would not
fall foul of the law again. I privately paid for training with one of
London’s leading law firms, Kingsley Napley, to cover all details regarding
contempt of court. There is documentation in relation to this in my
bundle.
22. On that morning at Leeds Crown Court I had knowledge of the verdicts of the
first phase of this grooming trial and many of the specific details discussed
in court for this particular trial. I did not talk about these in my livestream
on that day. I had understood based on my training that the specifics of the
case and the verdicts were off limits for reporting restrictions.
23. Having been unable to obtain any
details from the court on the conditions of the reporting restriction I decided
to review the guidelines for reporting restrictions. On the Judiciary’s website there is a practical guide aimed at judges and the
media on the statutory and common law principles that should be applied with regards to
reporting restrictions. The paper was called ‘Reporting Restrictions in the Criminal
Courts April 2015 (Revised May 2016)’. In this paper it stated that Courts
have no power under s.4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to prevent
publication of material that is already in the public domain (see page 27 of
this document).
24.I followed my training and this guidance to the letter. I did not divulge
any of the previous case verdicts, did not detail any specifics mentioned in
the trial, did not assume guilt and refrained from entering court property. I
even asked the officer outside the court where the court boundaries were and
that I was ok to film where I was to which he confirmed.
25. I also followed
that guidance document issued on the Judiciary website informing me that I
could only reference information that was already in the public
domain. Every single thing I said that day was already in the public
domain. I actually read charges and names of the defendants from a BBC
article which to this day is still live on their website. I also made sure
not to film anyone other than the defendants, I was calm and respectful
throughout.
10.
It is my understanding that there is no individual in the last 60 years
that has been sentenced to prison for a publication breach of a reporting
order. It would appear to me that my punishment
is exceptional. I would ask that I am treated in the same manner
as every other journalist who has been charged with these allegations.
The journalist Rod Liddle was writing for the Spectator magazine in relation
to the Stephen Lawrence murder trial, and when he was sentenced for
breaching the section 4 order, and risking prejudice to the trial,
was given a fine. Journalists at the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror
published highly prejudicial material on the trail of Levi Bellfield
who abducted and murdered an 11-year-old child. This contempt of court led
to the collapse of the entire case and discharge of the jury and robbed one of
his victims of the chance for justice. The reporters in this instance were
not prosecuted and instead their employers were found guilty of contempt and
fined £10,000.
11. I have reviewed the transcripts
from Leeds Crown Court where the Judge was discussing various reporting order
breaches. The judge and the CPS discuss the fact that multiple news
sources breached the very same order placed on my trial with some breaching both the reporting
orders by mentioning the grooming trial as well as my arrest and prison
term. Lizzie Dearden the home affairs correspondent at the Independent
actually refused to remove the article when provided with the order stating
that the effect of social media voids reporting restrictions, so she
could not be held in contempt of court. The CPS and the judge agreed
that these breaches of the order were a matter for the Attorney General to
review.
14. When I was informed of the
blanket order, I offered to delete my video immediately. Despite the
multiple breaches of the order by different newspapers that weekend
and the flat refusal of Lizzie Dearden to take her article down, not one of
those journalists or the editors of those publications, were ever arrested
or prosecuted for s.4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act.
15. According to the court
transcript the newspaper breaches of the reporting order was a matter for
the Attorney General. My case was not referred to the Attorney General for
review and instead I was hauled into court immediately, refused my own
choice of legal representation, prosecuted, and convicted in a matter of
minutes in what the Court of Appeal regarded as a flawed trial. I was then
imprisoned for over 2.5 months in solitary confinement until I won the
appeal. I was held against my categorisation, moved to the highest
Muslim population Cat C prison, subjected to mental torture and constant
threats and abuse and had all of my rights removed in the interest of prison
safety.
16. It is clear to me that my
continued prosecution and heavy-handed tactics from the state is because of ‘who
I am’ rather than ‘what I did’.
17. In relation to the second
allegation, the strict liability allegation, I would like to say this.
18. It is only since my original
trial that there has been an additional charge added suggesting that the
contents of my livestream were prejudicial to this case. The case completed,
the jury concluded, and the verdicts were given. I
would like to state clearly that in the transcript from the original
trial the judge discussed my video with Mr Wright QC, prosecution
counsel. Having reviewed the content of my video Mr Wright stated in
court: ‘here is nothing they could have seen that could in any
way prejudice them against the defendants’. Judge Marson agreed on the
record.
19. For this reason, (a) I cannot
see why I should face two charges when the core of the allegation in front of
Judge Marson was the breach of the section 4(2) order, other than because I am
regarded as a political activist and the charges are motivated by my political
activism, and (b) I do not accept that the material that was live streamed created
either a real or substantial risk of prejudice to the Leeds proceedings. The prosecution
counsel and the Judge both agreed on the court transcript that my livestream
could not have prejudiced the jury.
20. Everything I reported that
morning was fair and accurate and published in good faith within the
constraints of the judiciary’s guidelines for the media.
21. I will address each
point in the allegations drafted by the Advocate to the Court.
22. The first allegation
is that I suggested the defendants were involved in wider criminal activity.
This is not correct. I was referring to two reports, one on the radio
and one in the Huddersfield Examiner which set out the allegations
relating to the 29 individuals. I cannot find the original references but a
similar report on the BBC relating to the allegations is in the defence
bundle.
23. The second allegation is that
stating that those of the same ethnicity and religion as the defendants were
disproportionally likely to commit the crimes for which the defendants were
being tried could prejudice the trial.
24. This statement is factually
correct. The Quilliam foundation who are a Muslim run anti extremism think tank
have produced a research paper looking at convictions of this type 1 street
grooming from 2005 - 2017. This is in the defence bundle. They found that 84%
of all convictions were south Asian with the significant majority of those
being Pakistani Muslim. All of these victims were white children.
25. Sajid Javid the Home Secretary
himself announced on BBC news this year that in these types of street grooming
trials the individuals convicted are from a disproportionately Pakistani
background.
26. Nazir Afzal is the former head
of the Crown Prosecution Service in the north west of England and a lead
prosecutor on child sexual abuse and he also publicly stated on Channel 4 News
that Asians and Pakistanis in particular are disproportionately involved in
this type of street grooming. He also presented these facts in front of
Parliament.
26.
I merely stated factual insight into the ethnicity and religious make up
of perpetrators of these types of crimes. I repeated publicly available
research papers from the Quilliam Organisation, testimony from the former head
of Crown Prosecution Service in the Northwest and a statement from the Home
Secretary himself all three of which are in fact Pakistani Muslims themselves.
27. I do not accept that reporting
facts on the ethnicity or the make-up of particular offender groups could be
categorised as contempt of court given the number of grooming gang trials
currently in progress across the United Kingdom and the commentary on those
facts which are widely discussed in the media.
28. The third allegation is that
highlighting as significant the sexual references of the abuse that I had
elicited from the defendants could prejudice the trial.
29.
I asked each of the defendants what their views were on their verdict
they were expecting to hear that day. All 3 of them separately made aggressive
vulgar sexual references or sexual threats against both my mother and my wife.
I did not ask the defendants to comment on their views of my wife and mother,
they did this out of the blue. Repeating what they actually said in the video
has no relevance or prejudice on the trial itself.
30. The fourth allegation is that I
made derogatory comments about the ethnic or religious backgrounds of the
defendants.
31. I would like to point out I was
not talking about the specific defendants on trial I was referring to reaction
I had received by family and friends of previous convicted grooming gangs. By
derogatory comments it appears to mean telling the truth that under Islamic
law, the "age of consent" coincides with puberty. In Islam there is
no set age for marriage. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad, who is said to serve as
a role model for every Muslim, is reported by Sunni Hadith sources to have
married Aisha when she was six or seven years old, with the marriage
consummated when she was nine years old and he was 56 years old. The
prosecution may not like to hear the truth but there is no way that sharing the
truth and facts about a particular religion on social media can lead to
prejudice on a trial.
32. In
relation to the fifth allegation, a number of the comments relied on were made
by other people, and my comments related to grooming trials generally across
the country rather than the particular case (e.g. the exchange at page 8 of the
transcript of the livestream related to Rotherham, and Oxford). I made it clear
throughout that the trial concerned allegations.
33. The
nature and number of these ongoing trials, prosecutions and investigations
is highly alarming and I believe it is in the public’s interest to hear the
details and know of the complexities and connections amongst the previous prosecutions.
34. The
future safety of vulnerable children at risk is my concern here not the
perceived prejudice towards the defendants because of their ethnicity or
religion. If 29 white Christian priests were on trial on such charges with
reporting restrictions, I would feel exactly the same.
35. When I
initially went to report on the Canterbury trial I did so in what I felt was
the public interest. The police had DNA evidence on all four of the now
convicted child rapists, yet the decision was made to grant these individuals
bail. They were still running the same take away shop and coming into contact
with young school children. One of the defendants absconded to Afghanistan.
With DNA evidence on each of the now convicted child rapists it was my belief
that they should have been remanded to prison until trial in order to protect
vulnerable children in the surrounding area. Instead the decision was made to
release them back into the community on bail.
36. The same danger was placed on the children in case in question. The now
convicted child gang rapists on trial in Leeds that day were also free to walk
the streets on bail. There were 18 different witness statements detailing the
rape and torture of those children and yet the justice system decided that they
did not pose a risk to the public and granted them bail.
37. Just
like the Canterbury case one of these child rapists in the Leeds trial on also
absconded before his verdict was reached. I believe he has fled to Pakistan and
according to the court transcripts he was last seen leaving his house with a
large bag. That is a convicted child rapist free to roam the streets because he
was deemed no risk to the public and granted bail.
38. I have
previously been charged with a non-violent offence, and I was remanded straight
to prison to await trial. At Leeds Crown Court in May this year, the police
whisked me from the streets, I was subjected to a fundamentally flawed trial
and then sent straight to prison inside 5 hours. This is all whilst the very
same system allows alleged child rapists with multiple prosecution witness
statements and DNA evidence implicating them in the crime to continue to walk
the streets.
39. The
court has a duty to the victims and the public to protect them and telling them
could help stop ongoing child sexual exploitation and maybe prevent future
vulnerable children from falling victim to it.
40. Again I would like to reiterate that undermining the judge, the court, the
proceedings, the supremacy of the law or the administration of justice was
never my intention, but I truly believe the reporting restrictions on this
trial and subsequent connected trials are detrimental to the public and should
never have been imposed so the public could hear the details, and use the
knowledge of the proceedings to help prevent further cases such as these coming
before the courts.
41. The
jurors are given a responsibility. They are aware of the consequences of
researching the cases they sit on. It should be upon them and we should trust
them to do the task with honesty and integrity; it should not be for the public
to be kept purposely in the dark just in case they do not.
Dated this
22nd day of October 2018 _
______________________
Stephen
Lennon
