UK far-right activist gets 9 months in prison for contempt

LONDON — A British judge has sentenced far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to a total of nine months in prison for contempt of court.

He receives six months for filming defendants in a criminal trial and broadcasting the footage on social media and three months for an earlier contempt finding.

Judge Victoria Sharp says in the Old Bailey courthouse that the prison term was necessary to “properly reflect the gravity of the conduct.”

Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, was arrested and jailed last year for potentially prejudicing a trial after the Facebook broadcast outside a trial of men accused of sexually abusing teenage girls.

A court later freed him and said more review was needed.

Yaxley-Lennon, who founded the anti-Islam English Defense League, claims to have been exposing “Muslim rape gangs.”

— AP

Founder and former leader of the English Defence League, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, arrives at the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, in London on July 5, 2019. (Tolga Akmen/AFP)