LAWTON IN LONDON： Tommy Robinson may end up back in jail
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Summary
After a short hearing of just a couple of hours at the Old Bailey in London, Tommy Robinson is going back to court for yet another contempt of court hearing. The new hearing is going to be July 4th and 5th, ironically Independence Day.
Transcript
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After a short hearing of just a couple of hours at the Old Bailey in London, Tommy Robinson is
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going back to court for yet another contempt of court hearing. Yes, the decision was made by a
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two-judge panel to have Tommy Robinson effectively retried for the alleged offense of contempt of
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court for which he's already served time behind bars. The new hearing is going to be July 4th
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and 5th, ironically Independence Day. A few other factors in this case that are interesting is that
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Tommy Robinson may well be an elected member of the European Parliament by then, but even so what
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happens on July 4th will determine whether or not he goes back to jail. Now there's a lot of background
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to the case and a lot of complexities and I would encourage you to read up on them to get the strict
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facts on this outside of the spin and outside all of these other narratives that have been put forth
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by the mainstream media. But the one fundamental thing that was pushed forward today by Tommy Robinson's
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barrister was the idea of proportionality. The fact that we're talking about something that is so
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unprecedented in the sheer volume of a punishment being sought by the British government for something
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that has never had such punishment in anyone else's cases. And there have been about 25 such
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contempt of court cases leaned on as the authorities here and no one has ever had for a first infraction
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or a second infraction the penalty that Tommy Robinson has been subjected to. The Attorney General
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has been defending its right to put forward a political decision to prosecute and that was what
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was at stake here. It was the Attorney General arguing for the court to give it permission to pursue another
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prosecution and they kept arguing the same point that it was in the public interest, the public interest.
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Well Tommy Robinson was serving as a citizen journalist. He was serving as someone who wanted to draw
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attention to a story the mainstream media had been ignoring. But somehow the British government feels
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it is in the public interest to prosecute someone in that role. And in fact one of the points that was
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raised in the discussions in court was that of the ongoing Attorney General investigation into
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redefining what limits if any should exist on citizen journalism because of social media. There was a lot of
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technical discussion today but the fundamental point is that despite having already served 10 weeks
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behind bars Tommy Robinson may be going back. For True North from London I'm Andrew Lawton.