Tommy Robinson has a past as a bit of a thug. Football fighting, assault, that mix up with the mortgage which ended up with a conviction for fraud. Not the ideal CV for the saviour of the West, really.
Still, those are all spent convictions and in the UK at least, if you’ve done the time and paid the fine, that should be that. Unless it’s a real biggie, like rape or murder, it shouldn’t be held against you for ever. People do grow up, young thugs do become responsible adults sometimes. It happens. Quite often, in fact. I know quite a few of them.
I watched a YouTube video of Tommy Robinson talking with Imam Tahwidi (The Imam of Peace on Twitter and elsewhere). Imam Tahwidi is a devout Muslim and declares the Quran can never be reformed or changed. Yet, he does not feel the same way about the Hadiths, scripture written after Mohammed’s death. Those are not immutable because they do not come directly from the Prophet. Those hadiths are where most of the violence and intolerance comes from.
Tommy disagreed totally in the interview but was respectful and polite throughout. There was no shouting, no threats, from either of them. In fact, Tommy (and indeed I) learned a lot from Imam Tahwidi in that interview.
Whatever you think of Tommy Robinson, he is not the thug he once was. He might not be awfully bright but he means well. His fight against Muslim child rape gangs – well, if you want to silence dissent against child rape gangs I am going to open the Lefty play book and use the ‘if you don’t condemn it, you are clearly part of it’ gambit. That play book works both ways.
He is currently in jail for breaking the terms of a suspended sentence. The police who arrested him told him he wasn’t in breach (it’s on video) and arrested him for ‘breach of the peace’ which is a wonderful catch-all term for arrest that can mean anything at all. His lawyer was told he would be released. So the lawyer did not attend the trial he did not know was happening and Tommy was summarily sent to jail the same day he was arrested.
All over Twitter I see ‘Well he broke the law, what do you expect?’
He did, yes. He filmed convicted child rapists on their way into court for sentencing. The trial was over. The argument was that this action could prejudice more trials of this kind that are ongoing.
Maybe it could. I’m not a lawyer. I have been inside a courtroom precisely once in my life, called for jury service but not selected. So maybe an hour in a courtroom out of 58 years of life. I can’t pretend to know a damn thing about how it works. It just looked like a load of pompous self-importance to me.
I do know that having jury service hanging over you can totally fuck up self-employment. The bastards just don’t care though.
I do not see a single tweet suggesting that maybe the law isn’t quite what it should be.
Tommy had a suspended sentence of 3 months. He was summarily (within hours of arrest, remember, and with his lawyer told they had no need to attend because he would be released) sentenced to 13 months. Is that a fair way to treat anyone? Would you like it applied to you? You can be arrested for a hurty tweet or a sick joke now. How would you like to just disappear? Ask yourself, do you really want the law to work like that?
Oh it’s okay when it applies to someone you don’t like, isn’t it? But when it’s your dad or mum, when it’s your sister or brother, son or daughter, when it’s you… too late to object. The law is the law, remember, and when it comes for you… oh, please, no tears. It’s a waste of suffering.
Whatever you think of Tommy Robinson, whatever I think, doesn’t matter. Thousands and thousands of people turn out at demos to support him and those are just the ones who aren’t thinking quietly to themselves ‘he has a point’. We are talking a huge following here.
Call them all far right if you want, but they aren’t. They are ordinary people looking for a focus and identity their government denies them. The real far right are coming and when you shout ‘They are far right!’ the ordinary people will respond with ‘Well that’s what you call us anyway’. This is how despots get to power.
Tommy Robinson might well get killed by radical Muslims in prison. He won’t be the first.
Thirteen months. It could very well happen.
And if it does, the mob has a martyr.
This cannot end well.
underdogs bite upwards 
Oh, it gets funnier (for a certain mordant value of funny). The worthless she-judge in the original contempt case:
“I accept what Mr. Kovalevsky [TR’s defence lawyer] tells me about the dangers that you might face were you to be sent into immediate custody. I have to say it is on a knife edge so far as I am concerned because a very large part of me thinks so what?”
( Source: the official transcript of the hearing — https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/coc-yaxley-lennon-20170522.pdf )
Yeah, that’s a British judge saying, on the record, that they give no sh!ts if someone they personally dislike is killed after the judge sends them to prison.
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A judge with no foresight as to what it means to hand the mob a martyr.
So many pople still don’t get it.
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You don’t need foresight. Hindsight will do just fine.
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You raise a point here that I hadn’t considered; if the Hadiths could be changed, even added to, then a lot of the scripture of Islam could be effectively archived or classed as archaic and ignored much as fairly large sections of the Old Testament are now ignored.
Adding in clauses such as “The Koran is supreme on all personal spiritual matters, but humans also need human law for day-to-day matters, hence local laws also apply” and “God is the ultimate authority, but secular authority must also exist hence democracy should be used and respected so that the day-to-day stuff gets done fairly”. All fairly anodyne but things like that take Islam down what one might call the “Church of England” route whereby it gets increasingly respectable and eventually marginalised into a position of little authority.
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I think you nailed it fair and square, Leggy. It won’t end well. It is a travesty. It is the application of law, not justice.
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It was the extra ten months Judge Marson nailed on that amazed me. That was personal and positively malign.
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Tommy Robinson was his own worst enemy in the contempt of court issue: He pleaded guilty therefore no contest. The sentence, whatever one argues about it’s harshness or leniency (depending upon one’s viewpoint) was then a formality.
Now had he pointed out some interesting facts to the judge as laid down in Archbold: Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice and Halsburys Laws of England “OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE – E. CONTEMPT AT COMMON LAW”.
And I Quote;
Sir John Donaldson M.R.: “Mens rea in the law of contempt was something of a minefield. The reason was that it was wholly the creature of the common law and had developed on a case by case basis”.
In Dean v. Dean [1987] F.L.R. 517, C.A. (Civ. Div.), the court said that: “Contempt of court, whether civil or criminal, is a common law misdemeanour and it had long been recognised that proceedings for contempt were criminal or quasi-criminal in nature and that the case against the alleged contemnor must be proved to the standard of criminal proof namely, beyond reasonable doubt”
Buckley J. held that “No contempt had been committed because the case was to be tried by a Judge sitting alone, who would be unaffected”
In plain English what this means is that Contempt of Court is a claim made by a judge it is not a fact. It is the judge making a claim”! “Making a claim” about a Common Law misdemeanour. A misdemeanour that must be assessed to criminal standards (“beyond reasonable doubt”), under the Common Law.
This requires a Trial, in a Common Law Court (in front of a Jury) before it becomes anyone’s “guilty” verdict (and thus may warrant a prison sentence)!
It requires ‘arraignment’, i.e. FORMAL notification of the Charge, and a plea of “guilty” or “not guilty” entered into a Court Record before that Trial can take place.
AND THE JUDGE – MAKING THE COMPLAINT – CANNOT BE THE JUDGE AT THAT TRIAL … because s/he would be “a Judge in their own cause” i.e. “Judge, Jury and Executioner all rolled into one … in a sub-Trial within a Trial”.
So … instead of feeling “guilty” for his behaviour, outburst or conduct, or whatever – pleading guilty and letting himself be led down the stairs into a Court Cell – it might be a good idea to point all that out.
The Judge is entitled to make the claim. The Judge can have you evicted from the Courtroom. BUT THAT’S HIS OR HER LIMIT in the matter. (It’s up to a future Court – AND A DIFFERENT JUDGE – AND A JURY – to decide whether or not the original Judge’s claim of contempt can be substantiated)
And had he opted for not guilty and a jury trial, he might have been found guilty or he might not, if not then Jury nullification comes into play and the establishment fear this more than any other power we little people still have.
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Breaking news is that they’ve moved him to Leicester Nick where inmates are 71% Muslim. (That’s a f*** of a lot of Muzzies in jug – I wonder what for then? Can’t be for breaking Ramadan – they police that themselves with swords…) I suspect they’re hoping he’ll get wasted by them while there. they also previously cancelled his family-visit without notice and for no reason.
Perhaps he’s dead already? And there’ll either be some cover-story like “the prisone accidentally fell against a sharp object in the course of being moved”, or “his presence seemed to arouse the anger of other prisoners, who stated that they were offended”…or “on courtyard exercise, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time – this was an assault-gone-wrong”…
When, and how, will we know? This is llike the Reich’s “Nicht und Nebel”, under which people simple “disappeared”, into “Night and Fog”. I guess you’ll have something about that in Panoptica.
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The 71% turned out to be a massive exaggeration. Still, theprison is regarded as the least safe prison we have so there’s a good chance he won’t make it out alive. If he does, he is going to be able to make all kinds of claims about threats and violence. If he doesn’t, the mob has a martyr.
There is no good outcome from this. Putting him in that prison was an incredibly stupid thing to do.
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I lost all faith (and it has always been marginal at best) in our justice system when they jailed a landlord for allowing smoking in his pub. The jail term was because he simply could not front up the fine, not for the offence committed.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/i-wont-pay-vows-publican-fined-500-for-allowing-smokers-6648854.html
They did the same thing following the London riots; the sentences were “to set an example” and while I felt it fair for some people, they sent a street person to prison for about 15 months for picking up some cakes from a bakery that were lying on the ground inside the establishment.
This seems to be the underlying philosophy behind Tommy Robinson, hit hard and out of all proportion to the “crime” of filming in a public place.
IF he comes out intact he’ll be one of two things, either a severely broken man, or madder than hell. And neither outcome is in the best interests of the establishment.
It has sent a very strong message to us lot. The system is rigged, you cannot trust it, so make bloody sure you don’t get caught.
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The establishment only fear two things from us little people;
Jury nullification (when a Jury strikes down a bad prosecution) as they think it’s unfair, unjust to the State jut getting too big for it’s boots.
see links:
http://volteface.me/features/jury-nullification/
http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/7607/
http://ukcriminallawblog.com/jury-nullification-do-the-right-thing/
The State has tried to erode Jury and defendant power continually via such issues as “adverse influence” (ask me if you want to know more?) Majority verdicts when they used to be unanimous; the removal of double jeopardy (The State can in effect keep going after you for the same offence even if found not guilty) offering discounts for early please of guilty; the massive erosion of legal aid; and increased legislative powers for Police and creation of a statutory body called the National Crime Agency (who are civil servants with Police legislative powers) whereas a Constable is a sworn by oath public servant whose allegiance (or it should be) is to the Law.
We little people just don’t understand the power we still have via Jury nullification and peaceful civil disobedience.
Fuel protests anyone?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-305135/Dark-days-fuel-crisis-2000.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924574.stm
I recall this vividly and how a simple civil peaceful disobedience and defiance almost brought the Blair government down; and it frightened and I mean FRIGHTENED the establishment so much they introduced the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
Now that is power, collective power and it terrifies the establishment so much they still attempt (just like the Romans did with the Plebs) to distract us still with bread and circuses….
If only we would wake up and collectively and peacefully learn to say “NO”
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“Not the thug he once was”
Why am I reminded of Alex in Clockwork Orange?
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Everyone has had plenty of negative info about Tommy, from the media.
His book gives the other side of the story. (And it’s a very absorbing book.)
Neither will be the whole truth, no doubt. But, given his importance to over 600,000 people (petition), it is well worth checking out.
If you read it, and still think he’s completely wrong; at least you’ll know why so many other fools (including me) respect him.
I also strongly recommend “Mein Kampf”! Absolutely fascinating (and horrifying!).
Read that as an instruction manual on either-
How to become a totalitarian dictator (He nailed it!)
or
How to avoid electing another one! (It can so easily happen again!)
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I think Stephen Yaxley-Lennon will die in prison, at the hands of some scumbags which he and you and I didn’t want to have here, and which are here. he will have “accidentally fallen against sharp objects while in the commual shower”. It was a “murder gone wrong” … in other words a murder gone right. “Robinson was accidentally in the wrong place at the wrong time”. “Lessons will be learned”.
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There is an interview he did in which he says that he used to think his death would spark a revolution. But then Lee Rigby was beheaded in the street andnothing happened. Children were bombed in Manchester and nothing happened. So now he doesn’t think his death will cause anything more than maybe a bit of a protest and some muttering.
I suspect those who want him dead think the same.
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