In October 2018, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) produced a video accusing a young Syrian refugee, Jamal Hijazi, of being a violent school bully. This came shortly after footage had gone viral of Jamal being pinned to the ground and having water poured over him.
Jamal vehemently denied the allegation and instructed lawyers to begin legal action, and in April 2019 papers were served. A court case followed and, as predicted, Lennon lost and was ordered to pay Jamal £100,000 in damages and all reasonable legal costs. Unsurprisingly, Lennon declared bankruptcy rather than paying what he owed.
However, that wasn’t the end of the story. The court had also placed an injunction on Lennon that barred him from publishing a long-trailed, self-produced documentary titled Silenced about the case in which he repeated his libellous lies. He was also told categorically that if he repeated any of the claims publicly he could face prison.
Lennon seethed over this for the next two years, increasingly furious and embarrassed that he had so publicly lost the case. However, in May 2023 the pressure became too much and he released the film via a third party, while pretending publicly that it was leaked without his knowledge.
Since then HOPE not hate has worked tirelessly to prove he was lying and to ensure that he faces the legal consequences of his actions.
Now, after hundreds of hours of research and a huge campaign, Lennon is finally standing trial for breaking the injunction and could face up to four years in prison.
This is the story of HOPE not hate’s long battle to seek justice for Jamal.
Lennon’s original plan was to release the film via fellow libel-enthusiast Alex Jones of InfoWars. In a clear snub to the verdict, a trailer for a video about Hijazi appeared on Jones’ website. He had been boasting about the video since March 2021, and even the day before the verdict in the libel trial came through Lennon recorded a short video saying that he was in discussions with a mainstream broadcaster about releasing the film. This initial plan was scuppered by the imposition of the injunction, but he soon started looking for alternative ways to get his side of the story out.
The first indication that he planned to break the injunction emerged in early 2023. In an interview with the podcaster DMC Daily, broadcast on 24 January 2023, he discussed the film. “Let’s get into the video that you sent me,” said the host, a clear sign that Lennon had already broken the injunction by sending the film to other people.
Similarly, on 13 February he appeared on the Tankz Podcast to discuss the libel trial, saying: “I made a film that I’m not allowed to show anyone, I get two years in jail if I show anyone. I’ll send it you,” he said, pointing to the host. He even went on to say, “I’ll send you the video. You can share a little bit of it.”
That same month, he appeared on the Gareth Icke podcast and again offered to send the film to the host. However, in this recording he repeated his libels against Jamal in punishing detail, practically walking the viewer through his film scene by scene. This alone was a flagrant breach of the injunction and could have been enough to see him hauled in front of a judge for contempt.
Not content with repeating his libellous claims piecemeal on various podcasts, Lennon had long been exploring ways to release the whole film in a way that he hoped might look like an accident.
In October 2022, a little-known online NFT-cum-media platform called MICE Media gave a “curated collection” of cartoon mouse NFTs to Lennon. Later that month, Lennon began to discuss MICE Media on his Telegram channel, explaining to his supporters that, “Their idea is a decentralised crypto currency-based media channel, that can’t be cancelled.” The appeal to Lennon was obvious.
The relationship blossomed and by January 2023, Lennon proudly claimed that he is “a mouse” and heavily suggested that he had bought a stake in the company. From this moment, it was clear that they were hatching a plan to release Lennon’s libellous film.
In mid-February, Davis posted multiple references to the film in a Discord chat for Mice Media NFT holders, saying that he was “about to watch the Tommy Robinson documentary that will potentially be released under MICE FILMS.”
Later that month, Lennon gave a speech at MICE Media’s NFT conference in Paris and once again expressed his excitement at the possibilities offered by the platform. It seems that it was on this trip that Lennon and Davis bonded. “We speak daily,” explained Davis in the Discord channel. “I spent 4 days with him one-on-one in Paris. From Breakfast […] to closing out the night eating kebabs … I really, really have gotten to know Tommy the man.” The exact moment that Lennon struck a deal with MICE Media to release his film remains unclear, but from this trip onwards plans progressed quickly.
On 1 April 2023, a new MICE Media edit of Silenced was premiered by Lennon in Copenhagen at a meeting in the Danish Parliament, hosted by the Danish People’s Party and The Free Press Society. “Good afternoon and welcome to the world premiere of Tommy Robinson’s latest documentary, Silenced,” the event host, Aia Fog, told the audience.
Lennon clearly knew the screening broke his injunction, saying, “I’ve been given an injunction that says I get two years in prison. If certain information and truths are shown to the public, what could it be that the British establishment are that terrified of the public?”
The film that was broadcast was a new version, differing from the previous InfoWars cut that Lennon had sent around to podcasters a few months previously. This plainly contradicts Lennon’s later claims that he had not seen it and had no idea that changes had been made to the version he had handed over to Alex Jones in the summer of 2021. As is clear from screenshots from the Copenhagen broadcast, the film carries the 2023 date in the bottom right of the film and also opens with the MICE Media logo.
These were not the only new edits Lennon had made. The new film included some screencaps of tweets not posted until three months after the injunction was served. Then, towards the end of the film there is mention of Lennon being discharged from bankruptcy and additional legal fees of £25,000. The discharge occurred on 3 March 2022, while the additional legal fees were issued against Lennon in August 2022 and related to court hearings in April 2022 and June 2022.
During the Q&A following the screening, Lennon was asked by a member of the audience of his plans to get the film to a wider audience and replied, “My job is to get as many eyes on this film as humanly possible.” Hardly the words of someone who had no involvement in the release of the film, as he later claimed.
Their Man In Havana … and the Bahamas
The Copenhagen screening may have been the film’s world premiere, but there was still a lot to do before it could be released on the internet. At some point, Lennon and Bryn Davis from MICE Media agreed to meet in person to finalise arrangements. In keeping with Lennon’s lavish lifestyle, it seems they agreed to rendezvous in the Bahamas. This posed a problem for Lennon as most flights to the islands go via the US, a country that he is banned from visiting.
Lennon had been on a family holiday in Spain during the first two weeks of April and as there are no direct flights to the Bahamas from Madrid, he flew instead to Havana, Cuba, and on to the Bahamas from there.
He arrived in Havana on 14 April and after a stay at the Grand Aston hotel, he left on 18 April. While in Cuba, Lennon filmed a new clip for Silenced – while sitting outside the 4-star hotel – in which he begged supporters for money. From Cuba, Lennon made his way to Freeport, the main city on Grand Bahama, the closest island to Florida.
The trip was far from all work, with plenty of time spent in the Bones Bar, part of the Pelican Bay Hotel. However, whilst in the Bahamas, Lennon recorded a 12-second clip, which was later posted on the MICE Media Discord server, in which he said: “Are you ready to go to war? We are about to set the internet on fire! Disruption like no one has ever seen is coming. It’s going to be a busy month!”.
In subsequent messages, Davis described the meetings as follows: “You know you’re brewing up something straight nasty when you’re sitting by a lagoon in Freeport with journalists… along with members of SAS, intelligence officers of a U.S. general… and a Seal”.
After the gathering in the Bahamas, things moved fast. On 21 May, MICE Media announced they would release the film in four days. Just 25 minutes later, at 1:58am, Urban Scoop, the media company Lennon works for, emailed its supporters responding to the tweet. Laughably, he claimed:
“it’s not me publishing it,” and that, “I do not support the release of the film. […] I have said openly and publicly that I did not want this documentary to be made public, in line with the injunction laid down by the courts. Even if I do not agree with the court order, I do respect the law.”
His explanation was that, “it has been circulating among journalists since its creation.”
As HOPE not hate showed, these claims were absurd. Lennon was intricately involved in collaborating with MICE Media to release his libellous film, and had created a new edit for MICE Media to publish. Despite making these claims, Lennon eagerly set about promoting the film’s release on his various social media platforms. Another Urban Scoop email explained that, “When it can be accessed, we will let our supporters know where they can watch and share it.”
On Thursday 25 May 2023, the film was finally published online by MICE Media, and Lennon eagerly promoted it on his Telegram channel. This alone was a breach of the injunction, but was not the only promotion of the film by Lennon. Between early April and mid-June, HOPE not hate identified at least 37 posts on his Telegram and Gettr accounts promoting it.
In the wake of the film’s release, Lennon appeared on numerous podcasts and has been interviewed by a number of media outlets. While he has repeatedly claimed to have no knowledge of, or involvement in, the film’s release, he has praised the airing of it and repeated his libellous claims about Jamal.
In a video released on 26 May 2023, for example, Lennon was interviewed by the far-right founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes. He once again categorically lied about not knowing about the film’s release, stating, “The first I heard about it was within the last couple of weeks, when I started getting knocking on the door from American journalists asking questions about this film. I then became aware it was going to be released.”
He made the same absurd claim on The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson podcast on 1 June, and again in a podcast with Gareth Icke released on 4 June. Regardless of his claims, he proceeded to break the injunction again by repeating all of the main libels from the film in these podcasts.
We knew Lennon was lying, and we had amassed a huge amount of evidence that proved it. We had tracked his movements over a period of months, watched and transcribed dozens of hours of his interviews, catalogued thousands of messages by him and his colleagues at MICE Media, that together proved he was central to the libellous films release.
Keen to ensure that Jamal got the justice he deserved, and to try to stop Lennon repeating his fabricated claims more widely, we collated the evidence into a 80-page dossier and submitted it to the Attorney General. We believed that the research we had collected was more than enough to start contempt of court proceedings against Lennon.
To ensure our dossier was taken seriously, we also launched a campaign in April 2023 and 15,000 HOPE not hate supporters signed our open letter to the Attorney General, and in June 2024 the Solicitor General finally launched legal action against Lennon for breaking the injunction.
Once legal action had been taken Lennon clearly decided he had nothing to lose. With our ever-growing dossier of evidence it looked increasingly likely that he was facing prison.
However, despite Lennon’s impending legal problems it wasn’t all bad news for him. In late 2023 he was reinstated on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and found himself once again able to reach huge audiences online.
Losing his platform in 2020 contributed to a period of declining relevance, exacerbated by a range of personal and legal problems. However, once back on X, he began to rally his supporters in ever bigger numbers.
In November last year, he called on his supporters to “defend” the Cenotaph in Westminster from pro-Palestine demonstrators. On the day, an army of Lennon’s supporters and football hooligan gangs descended on London resulting in violent clashes with the police. However, Lennon was widely criticised after jumping in a taxi and fleeing from the scene while many of those he had mobilised were arrested.
Then in June 2024 his event in Westminster attracted roughly 6,000 people, the largest numbers to any far-right demonstration since 2018.
Things escalated even further in July, when he returned to central London for a protest that attracted somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people.
Remarkably, just 48 hours before he was due in court to face a hearing related to the contempt of court proceedings, he decided to broadcast the whole of Silenced to the massed crowds on vast screens in Trafalgar Square.
“Now you can take me to court,” he screamed from the stage:
“They think they are putting me on trial, I just put you on trial to the world. […] Death, prison or glory, we will never submit to your lies. They may plan to take me to court and put me in jail. […] Nearly a million people have watched that film so far. Share it with everyone you know. They want to send me to jail, the world will know I told the truth. Your gagging order only works if we allow you to gag us.”
Clearly aware that the evidence against him was too strong, he sought to take control of the situation and save face with his supporters. The days of pretending it was leaked without his knowledge were over.
Lennon made things even worse for himself when he failed to appear at the court hearing, instead fleeing the country. Unsurprisingly, in light of the screening the Attorney General’s Office launched a second serious legal action for contempt of court, meaning he faces up to four years behind bars.
At 3pm on Friday 25 October, Lennon handed himself in at Folkestone police station. He was charged and bailed under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, having failed to provide the pin to his mobile phone. However, while at the station Lennon was remanded in custody ahead of a separate contempt of court case, which took place today at Woolwich Crown Court.
Despite his absence, Lennon’s long-planned Unite The Kingdom rally still took place in central London a few days before, having been rearranged from the original 12 November date. Attracting roughly 15-20,000 people, the event was significantly smaller than Lennon’s last event in July.
While the number of attendees remains extremely concerning, the event highlighted the lack of a credible figurehead to step into Lennon’s place should he end up receiving a prolonged prison sentence.
On Monday 28th, just hours ago, Lennon appeared at court and admitted committing contempt of court by repeating the false allegations against Jamal. At the time of writing, we are waiting to hear what sentence he will face, though a custodial sentence seems very likely.
Despite claiming that he is a victim of persecution, Lennon has no one to blame but himself. He libelled a young Syrian refugee and has spent years evading justice. He knew the consequences that came with breaking the injunction, which is why he lied about being involved in the film’s release. Once he had run out of options and justice loomed, he threw caution to the wind and publicly broke it in front of thousands of people.
Lennon has always thought that he is above the law, that he can operate by his own rules. He has made a career out of lying and trying to get away with it. We decided we were going to prove his lies, and we did.
Uncover the truth behind Britain’s most notorious far-right figure. This updated edition is packed with new insights into his replatforming, latest courtroom battles, and dark alliances, this edition gives you an unfiltered look at the real story of Robinson.
