Britain versus Tommy Robinson： Day 1
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Summary
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.
Transcript
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I'm outside the Old Bailey in downtown London, England, my third time coming to
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this country for the very same reason to cover the ordeal that the legal system
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in Britain is putting Tommy Robinson through. It stems back to a contempt of
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court allegation against him for which he was convicted, jailed, then that was
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overturned on appeal but then the Attorney General ordered a new trial on
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it which brings us to what's happening this week. A two-day trial prosecuted by
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a lawyer for the Attorney General basically that could put Tommy Robinson
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back to jail again. What we saw emerge today in the first day of the trial was
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the theme unfolding about the defense strategy and also the crown strategy in
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prosecution. Tommy Robinson is saying two main things chief among them that he was
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reporting. He was doing what any concerned citizen journalist would do,
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bringing attention to a critical issue facing the community of Huddersfield and
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that was the gang rape, the sex grooming gangs that existed in there that were
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targeting young girls. And in reporting on this he was outside the courtroom hosting
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that infamous live stream in which he filmed defendants who are now convicts
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heading into the court. He said look I'm reporting but more importantly I wasn't
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reporting on anything that wasn't in the public interest. His argument,
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his lawyer's argument is that the public interest, the public domain, these things
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are exempt from the contempt of court and the reporting restrictions that the
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government is trying to claim here. So he was reporting on something in the
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public domain, reporting in the public interest, but moreover Tommy said that he
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has out of an abundance of caution gone through a number of what were called
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checks, verifications to ensure that there wasn't a reporting restriction that
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would impact him. And we heard a few key ways where he said he did this. Number one,
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he went in and asked a security guard, this is not in dispute. Number two, he looked at
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the court website, it did not say there was a reporting restriction. And number three,
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he had a colleague of his go in and actually look at the courtroom door and
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the monitors in the courtroom and those did not have the indication of a
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reporting restriction. Now the British judicial policy is that a reporting
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restriction is published in all of those places. And what happened? The Crown's
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star witness, a woman by the name of Michelle Dunderdale, testified and her
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word is that the court failed. That's what she said, the court failed at doing this.
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The process has failed, the internal process has failed, and she says that this is
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something they've had to come up with another way around, a new process, they've
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needed to change it up. But there's an admission from the government that this
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reporting restriction was not notified. Now a couple of things happened to
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combat this. The Attorney General's lawyer said, number one, that it doesn't matter
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anyway because, you know, the reporting restriction exists whether you are
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negligent or not, whether you're ignorant or not. But also, and this is the most
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important thing, he accused Tommy Robinson of making it up. He said to Tommy, I
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believe you've created these stories about going through these checks after the
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fact. Tommy said that's incorrect. And what did the lawyer for the Attorney
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General say? I will quote exactly, oh well. So this is what's happening here. You have
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the government of the United Kingdom, the Attorney General of this country, of
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England and Wales, saying to Tommy Robinson, we believe you've made it up, you
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didn't go through these checks, even though the government admits, the
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government's witness admits that these things did not happen, these things that
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were supposed to happen. Now there are obviously going to be a lot of
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arguments about the law itself, not the facts of the case, but the law. And we're
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expected to hear more of those when day two of the trial kicks off. I'll be in
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the courtroom again if you want to follow my tweets starting from about 4.30 a.m.
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Eastern Time. If you're an early riser, you can do so. My Twitter name is
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across the bottom there, at Andrew Lawton. Back in court tomorrow for day two of the
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trial of Tommy Robinson. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.