Fools got ******* played!
The far-right figurehead who styles himself Tommy Robinson says he has sacked his lawyers and intends to get himself sent back to jail when he appears in court this week for a contempt hearing.
Former assistants to Robinson said he scooped a “massive payday” when he was jailed for contempt in May, earning huge public visibility and hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations. Robinson was jailed for 13 months after confronting and filming men of Pakistani origin outside a court, where they were on trial for their alleged parts in Britain’s biggest sex grooming gang.
On Friday it emerged that the men were among 20 convicted as members of a gang that subjected girls as young as 11 to an “inhuman” campaign of rape and sexual abuse in Huddersfield. The judge, Geoffrey Marson QC, said the footage, which Robinson live-streamed on Facebook, risked prejudicing the trial and jeopardised other cases against the gang.
Tommy Robinson: an agent of disinformation?
It is believed that a return to prison would gain further money and attention for Robinson, 35, who was released on appeal in August pending the hearing on Tuesday. In May, Robinson admitted the contempt and apologised — but he now appears to have recanted.
In a video interview with PI News, an obscure German website, he said: “I sacked my solicitors because they tried to broker a deal where I apologise and I admit guilt, and then if I do that then I go home.
“And I said, I’m never going to do that. . . . They were working for the other side, that’s what I felt. This is a historic moment, and I want to speak and stand by my convictions. So I’m going to stand up in court and read a statement . . . that tells the truth about Islam . . . I’d rather go to jail for the next 25 years than accept guilt for telling the truth . . . I am going to lay the gauntlet down to the government. . . . When you read what I’m going to say in court, I’m calling all of them out . . . I know 100% I am going to jail.”
Robinson was speaking after receiving the “European patriot of the year” award at a conference in Bavaria organised by the hard-right magazine Compact. In his acceptance speech, he said: “German people for too long have lived in the guilt of Adolf Hitler. Do not live in the guilt of Angela Merkel.”
The conference, on September 29, brought together key figures on the European far right, including Lutz Bachmann, the founder of Pegida, Martin Sellner, from the Generation Identity movement, leaders of the Alternative for Germany party and a representative of the Italian leader, Matteo Salvini. Compact has been funded by the Kremlin-created Institute for Democracy and Co-operation.
A former assistant to Robinson, who had access to his Stripe online payment processing account, claimed it contained £2m after his jailing and appeal, thanks to a flood of donations, mostly small amounts. Another former assistant, Lucy Brown, told The Sunday Times in August that Robinson operated a “business” in which “your outrage, valid as it is, will be monetised as such”.
Robinson recently moved into a £950,000 house in an upmarket village in Bedfordshire. The detached, gated property has four bedrooms, a two- bedroom annexe and a double garage.
John Carson, of Carson Kaye, Robinson’s solicitor for the August appeal, refused to comment last night. The firm described Robinson as a client in a tweet two days before the German interview.
It is understood Robinson may have been referring not to Carson but to his barrister in the August appeal, Jeremy Dein QC, who has parted company with Robinson and did not represent him at a brief interim hearing last month.
Dein disputed he was sacked, saying he “withdrew for professional reasons”.
Robinson did not return messages asking for comment. In a video on his Facebook page on Friday, after the rape convictions were reported, he repeated that he would be “convicted on Tuesday”.
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