British independent journalist Tommy Robinson has been found guilty of contempt of court for a second time over livestreaming outside a 2018 Pakistani grooming gang trial in Leeds.
The trial had been under a reporting restriction, but Robinson’s lawyers argued that information was not available on the court’s website at the time — and that he attempted to find out if there was a ban four times before going to the courthouse.
Furlong (Tommy's lawyer) says that wilful blindness to publication bans is the right standard — a standard Tommy clearly exceeded, given his four attempts to find out about any publication ban.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) July 5, 2019
Robinson had previously served 10 weeks in prison for the offense before the charges were overturned in the Court of Appeal. Their ruling that found he was improperly tried, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned. Though he was released, the court left the option open to try him again for the same incident — which they did this week.
Robinson now faces up to two years in prison, but his sentencing will be determined at a later date.
BREAKING: Court finds Tommy Robinson guilty of contempt of court in three ways.
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) July 5, 2019
A massive amount of supporters had shown up to court and began chanting “shame on you” at the court when the verdict was announced.
Tommy Robinson has arrived at the Old Bailey for the second day of a two day contempt of court hearing. Attorney General trying to overturn a successful appeal which saw him released from a 13month prison term last year. pic.twitter.com/9DnQi8XYO2
— Mark White (@markwhiteTV) July 5, 2019
The Attorney General claimed that Robinson’s livestream encouraged his supporters to show up at the trial that he was covering and harass the defendants. They argued that he was intimidating the now-convicted child rapists by being present with his camera and telling his viewers that “by the end of the day, hopefully millions of people will have seen the faces of these alleged offenders.”
Tommy Robinson addressed thousands of supporters outside court today. See the FULL SPEECH here: https://t.co/9gOdvxWUkM
PLUS: Watch ALL The Rebel's reports from London at https://t.co/wFToa9ArhN #UK #tcot #news pic.twitter.com/ploFXOcjMW
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) July 4, 2019
Speaking to the Gateway Pundit in May, Robinson pointed out that he had been chased into the courtroom that day by a slew of reporters and photographers harassing him and nothing was done to prevent it. He also noted that Independent journalist Lizzie Dearden ignored a reporting ban the same weekend he did — but was never charged.
Robinson also explained to us how he told his young children that he may have to go back to prison.
“I explained this to my son last week, I told him ‘look at your 11-year-old sister — these men are doing terrible things’,” he stopped, overcome with emotion. “Say I go to prison, if there was a girl like your sister and bad men were doing terrible things — and me going to jail saves just one girl — would you want me to go?”
His son said yes.
