UK far-right activist gets 9 months in prison for contempt

LONDON – Far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has been sentenced to a total of nine months in prison for contempt of court.

He received six months for filming defendants in a criminal trial and broadcasting the footage on social media and three months for an earlier contempt finding.

Judge Victoria Sharp said in the Old Bailey courthouse that the prison term was necessary to “properly reflect the gravity of the conduct.”

Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, was arrested and jailed last year for potentially prejudicing a trial after the Facebook broadcast outside a trial of men accused of sexually abusing teenage girls.

A court later freed him and said more review was needed.

Police said roughly 200 of his supporters had gathered to back Yaxley-Lennon and there were scuffles throughout the afternoon after his sentence was announced. Police were pelted with bottles and cans.

Yaxley-Lennon, who founded the anti-Islam English Defence League, claims to have been exposing “Muslim rape gangs.”