Tommy Robinson might be headed back to jail
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Summary
Tommy Robinson may be headed back to jail. After being released from prison in August of 2018, Robinson went on to launch an appeal against his 13-month sentence for a charge of contempt of court. But now, the case has been referred back to the UK Supreme Court for a new hearing, and a new contempt charge could be brought against Robinson.
Transcript
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Tommy Robinson is, of course, the anti-Islamism activist in the United Kingdom
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who last year was sentenced to 13 months behind bars
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for running a Facebook live stream outside a courthouse in Leeds.
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Tommy Robinson was filming the arrival of several men
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who are now convicted sex groomers, part of a sex grooming gang in Britain,
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and the judge who was overseeing this case looked out the window
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and had him arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced, and thrown to jail
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without so much as a chance to say goodbye to his wife and kids.
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Now, the Tommy Robinson case has been a contentious one
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and I've said myself that I'm not necessarily a fan
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of a lot of the things that Tommy Robinson has said and done.
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and more importantly, I think that when it comes to the cases
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of the rape and grooming gangs, Tommy Robinson has been the only person in Britain
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who's really been prepared to speak about them honestly,
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especially at times when the mainstream media was nowhere to be found on the issue.
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So I'm sympathetic to what he's tried to do in this case in shining the light on it.
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Now, back in August, after Tommy had been spending much of his time incarcerated
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actually in solitary confinement, getting the same treatment
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that some of the most vicious offenders in all of Britain get,
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when the appellate judge determined that the earlier judge
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who treated him with very little regard for due process had made errors.
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and that case was referred to have a new contempt of court hearing
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Now, you may remember I was in the United Kingdom for that case.
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In October, I covered it, went all the way to London to the Old Bailey
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to sit down and ultimately the case never happened.
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The most senior judge at the Old Bailey decided that it was too complex to be heard
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So what the judge did is referred the case to the British Attorney General
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to decide whether contempt of court proceedings should continue.
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Now, it wasn't a wasted trip because I learned a great deal about Tommy Robinson,
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about the English justice system, and more importantly, about the English media.
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One story that I broke, which was worth the plane ticket to get there,
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was certainly that the mainstream British press were conspiring
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not just to manipulate and lie about covering Tommy Robinson,
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but they had also already made up their minds about his case and his guilt.
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And they spoke about this candidly in front of me,
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But at the same time, it's not just about the media.
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Tommy Robinson's life and liberty hang in the balance
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The Attorney General has decided to order a new contempt of court hearing.
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Now, if schedules permit, I plan to be there to cover this case
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because the issues facing Tommy Robinson really are global issues
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that we see elsewhere in the Commonwealth and indeed in the Western world,
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But the most important question that I think a lot of people need to ask here
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is whether their personal opinions of Tommy Robinson
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are getting in the way of their opinions about due process.
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And indeed, for a lot of the press, that certainly seems to be the case.
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My interest in this has always been about free speech
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and whether someone is, in the name of political correctness
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being treated differently than the law suggests.
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A few weeks ago, I was actually trying to get an update on this case
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to the Office of the United Kingdom Attorney General
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it's no surprise why they didn't want to comment
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