Founder of far-right English Defense League gets 18 months in prison for court contempt

The founder of the far-right English Defense League was sentenced Monday to a year and a half in prison for violating a court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee. 

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, admitted in Woolwich Crown Court that he was in contempt of court for violating a 2021 injunction by giving interviews in a podcast and shown on YouTube, and in a documentary he presented during a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in July that was also posted on his X account and widely viewed. 

Justice Jeremy Johnson said Robinson’s breaches of the injunction were not “accidental, negligent or merely reckless” but a “planned, deliberate, direct, flagrant breach of the court’s orders.”