Supporters stage protests as far-right activist jailed

Dozens of angry supporters of far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon scuffled with police and marched on parliament after he was jailed yesterday for contempt of court.
Up to 200 banner-waving protesters outside the Old Bailey court in central London chanted slogans and clashed with police in riot gear when the sentence was announced.
A large group then headed towards parliament, blocking roads and shouting “shame on you” at lawmakers inside.
Yaxley-Lennon, 36, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson, was jailed for committing contempt of court after he filmed defendants during a trial last year and posted the footage on social media.
He was found in contempt last week for breaching a reporting ban by videoing defendants accused of sexually exploiting young girls outside a courthouse in Leeds, while jurors were still considering their verdicts.
“Today’s sentencing of Yaxley-Lennon serves to illustrate how seriously the courts will take matters of contempt,” said attorney general Geoffrey Cox, the government’s chief legal adviser
Yaxley-Lennon, who arrived at court wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the message “Convicted of Journalism” was arrested in May last year for making the video recordings and jailed for 13 months later that day.
However, he successfully appealed against the conviction and was released. Cox decided to re-start contempt proceedings against him leading to the hearings last week where he was convicted.
Judges said he had breached a court order, and his actions, aggressively confronting and filming some of the defendants, had created a substantial risk that “the course of justice in that case would be seriously impeded”.
In her ruling, judge Victoria Sharp said that in his video Yaxley-Lennon, who argued he is highlighting cases ignored by mainstream media, “approves and encourages vigilante action” and his viewers would have understood it as “an incitement to engage in harassment of the defendants”.
In a written ruling, Sharp said Robinson had claimed his intention in making the broadcast was to “denounce the media” for their behaviour. But the judges found he had encouraged others “to harass a defendant by finding him, knocking on his door, following him, and watching him”.
This created “a real risk that the course of justice would be seriously impeded”, she said.
He was jailed for six months for the Leeds contempt and a further three months for a previous contempt of court.
Yaxley-Lennon came to public attention as the co-founder of the English Defence League (EDL), a street movement, and he is now one of Britain’s most high-profile far-right figures.
A former counter-terrorism police chief cited him as a source of growing far-right extremism.