LAWTON IN LONDON： Tommy Robinson might be headed back to jail. Here’s why it matters to Canadians
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Summary
This week, Tommy Robinson will find out this week whether he has to go through another contempt of court trial for what he did back in the summer, when he was standing outside a courtroom with a live stream on in his phone offering commentary on a Muslim sex grooming gang case.
Transcript
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I'm in London in the United Kingdom to cover a case that should have everyone in the developed
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world paying attention because it's about the fundamental legal rights and the right to do
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process that people are supposed to have all around the world in free countries. Tommy
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Robinson is once again facing potential jail time for a contempt of court charge stemming from his
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desire to draw attention to a case that few in the mainstream media were. Tommy Robinson will
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find out this week whether he has to go through another contempt of court trial for what he did
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back in the summer previous to here which was standing outside a courtroom with a live stream
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on in his phone offering commentary and coverage of a case against Muslim sex grooming gangs that
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was going on in a courtroom in Leeds. This was something where the judge looked out the window
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saw that Tommy was broadcasting on Facebook and had him arrested, charged, tried, sentenced and convicted
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all within a matter of about five hours and he was then put to prison where he was subjected to
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solitary confinement where his rights were denied all because he flipped on the camera button on his
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phone when standing in a public courtyard. Now this was overturned in an appeal and then a new
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trial was ordered which took place or was supposed to take place in London in October and I was in
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the UK for that when the most senior judge of the Old Bailey in downtown London found that there were
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enough complexities to Tommy's case that the Attorney General would have to order new charges were it to
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proceed. Unfortunately for Tommy the Attorney General of the United Kingdom Geoffrey Cox did exactly that
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a new hearing was ordered and this week we're going to find out if Tommy is actually going to have to go
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through this whole thing again. Now this is going to be just a two-hour hearing and in it Tommy's
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legal team is arguing that he should not have to have another hearing well the Attorney General will
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essentially be arguing that he does. But the reason this case is so interesting and why I as a Canadian
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here is because Tommy has become much of a lightning rod in the UK the press cannot cover his case
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honestly in the United Kingdom as I demonstrated with evidence last time I was here. But also what's
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happened in his treatment in the press and I literally had a front row seat to that in court sitting in
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front of a bunch of the mainstream media reporters that have been covering the Tommy case and I wanted
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to read a couple of things that they said to one another not realizing that I was actually committed to
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fairness. Ezra Levant needs to be arrested he's whipped up hate. Another one about Tommy before the
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court case had even started and one reporter said this quote he is in contempt of court there's not
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really any doubt. But more importantly the right to due process the right to free speech the right to
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press freedom these are all freedoms that don't just exist in the UK and some would argue they don't
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but these are freedoms that need to be upheld around the world. And as a matter of fact in just
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a couple of months I'm going to be back in the UK because the United Kingdom and Canada are co-hosting
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a press freedom summit and this is a summit where these countries are going to hold themselves up as
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the gold standard for press freedom and tell other countries how they can do better. Well we're here to
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look not just at the legal questions facing Tommy but also whether or not this case has wider ranging
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implications on press freedom. Remember Tommy was representing himself outside that courtroom last
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summer as a journalist. He was there for journalistic reasons meaning when he was arrested and hauled off to
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jail for covering this case that no one else in the media was that was a violation of press freedom. All of
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these cases are interconnected and I'm here to get the answers. Now this sort of coverage doesn't happen
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without you. We're still crowdfunding for me to be able to come back here in July for that press freedom
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summit. There's a link in the box if you're able to help out with a couple of bucks or a couple of
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hundred bucks it would go a long way. But for now the coverage continues. For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.