Juno News - Britain versus Tommy Robinson： Day 1

In the first day of Tommy Robinson's new trial, the defense and prosecution argue that he was doing what any concerned citizen journalist would do: reporting on a critical issue facing the community of Huddersfield, England. And in reporting on that issue, he was subject to a reporting restriction.

00:00:00.000 I'm outside the Old Bailey in downtown London, England, my third time coming to

00:00:12.900 this country for the very same reason to cover the ordeal that the legal system

00:00:16.980 in Britain is putting Tommy Robinson through. It stems back to a contempt of

00:00:22.440 court allegation against him for which he was convicted, jailed, then that was

00:00:27.600 overturned on appeal but then the Attorney General ordered a new trial on

00:00:31.920 it which brings us to what's happening this week. A two-day trial prosecuted by

00:00:36.240 a lawyer for the Attorney General basically that could put Tommy Robinson

00:00:41.040 back to jail again. What we saw emerge today in the first day of the trial was

00:00:45.780 the theme unfolding about the defense strategy and also the crown strategy in

00:00:50.700 prosecution. Tommy Robinson is saying two main things chief among them that he was

00:00:56.460 reporting. He was doing what any concerned citizen journalist would do,

00:01:00.000 bringing attention to a critical issue facing the community of Huddersfield and

00:01:04.380 that was the gang rape, the sex grooming gangs that existed in there that were

00:01:09.000 targeting young girls. And in reporting on this he was outside the courtroom hosting

00:01:13.860 that infamous live stream in which he filmed defendants who are now convicts

00:01:19.320 heading into the court. He said look I'm reporting but more importantly I wasn't

00:01:23.400 reporting on anything that wasn't in the public interest. His argument,

00:01:26.940 his lawyer's argument is that the public interest, the public domain, these things

00:01:32.280 are exempt from the contempt of court and the reporting restrictions that the

00:01:36.840 government is trying to claim here. So he was reporting on something in the

00:01:39.840 public domain, reporting in the public interest, but moreover Tommy said that he

00:01:43.940 has out of an abundance of caution gone through a number of what were called

00:01:47.900 checks, verifications to ensure that there wasn't a reporting restriction that

00:01:53.000 would impact him. And we heard a few key ways where he said he did this. Number one,

00:01:57.920 he went in and asked a security guard, this is not in dispute. Number two, he looked at

00:02:02.900 the court website, it did not say there was a reporting restriction. And number three,

00:02:07.340 he had a colleague of his go in and actually look at the courtroom door and

00:02:11.360 the monitors in the courtroom and those did not have the indication of a

00:02:15.500 reporting restriction. Now the British judicial policy is that a reporting

00:02:19.740 restriction is published in all of those places. And what happened? The Crown's

00:02:25.100 star witness, a woman by the name of Michelle Dunderdale, testified and her

00:02:29.360 word is that the court failed. That's what she said, the court failed at doing this.

00:02:34.260 The process has failed, the internal process has failed, and she says that this is

00:02:39.020 something they've had to come up with another way around, a new process, they've

00:02:42.720 needed to change it up. But there's an admission from the government that this

00:02:46.800 reporting restriction was not notified. Now a couple of things happened to

00:02:51.220 combat this. The Attorney General's lawyer said, number one, that it doesn't matter

00:02:56.280 anyway because, you know, the reporting restriction exists whether you are 0.96

00:02:59.960 negligent or not, whether you're ignorant or not. But also, and this is the most

00:03:04.100 important thing, he accused Tommy Robinson of making it up. He said to Tommy, I

00:03:08.580 believe you've created these stories about going through these checks after the

00:03:12.660 fact. Tommy said that's incorrect. And what did the lawyer for the Attorney

00:03:15.940 General say? I will quote exactly, oh well. So this is what's happening here. You have

00:03:21.000 the government of the United Kingdom, the Attorney General of this country, of

00:03:24.980 England and Wales, saying to Tommy Robinson, we believe you've made it up, you

00:03:29.000 didn't go through these checks, even though the government admits, the

00:03:32.820 government's witness admits that these things did not happen, these things that

00:03:37.580 were supposed to happen. Now there are obviously going to be a lot of

00:03:40.320 arguments about the law itself, not the facts of the case, but the law. And we're

00:03:44.540 expected to hear more of those when day two of the trial kicks off. I'll be in

00:03:48.520 the courtroom again if you want to follow my tweets starting from about 4.30 a.m.

00:03:52.700 Eastern Time. If you're an early riser, you can do so. My Twitter name is

00:03:56.200 across the bottom there, at Andrew Lawton. Back in court tomorrow for day two of the

00:04:01.340 trial of Tommy Robinson. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

00:04:07.580 Lawton

00:04:09.860 Lawton

00:04:10.880 Lawton

00:04:12.380 Lawton

00:04:14.260 Lawton

00:04:17.340 Lawton

00:04:18.780 Lawton

00:04:20.580 Lawton

00:04:21.380 Lawton

00:04:22.400 Lawton

00:04:23.360 Lawton

00:04:24.360 Lawton

00:04:26.460 Lawton

00:04:26.860 Lawton

00:04:27.360 Lawton

00:04:28.520 Lawton

00:04:29.480 Lawton

00:04:30.360 Lawton

00:04:31.400 Lawton

00:04:32.400 Lawton

00:04:33.400 Lawton

Juno News - July 04, 2019

Britain versus Tommy Robinson： Day 1

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript