LONDON (Reuters) -British anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, on Monday admitted contempt of court by breaching an injunction made after he was successfully sued for libel.
Yaxley-Lennon was sued for libel at London’s High Court by Syrian refugee Jamal Hijazi, who he wrongly claimed had attacked a girl at his school.
In 2021, he was ordered to pay damages and also made subject to an injunction preventing him from repeating the libellous statements.
Yaxley-Lennon appeared at London’s Woolwich Crown Court and admitted breaching the injunction after Britain’s Solicitor General had taken legal action against him over comments in online interviews and a documentary titled ‘Silenced’.
He appeared at court in custody after he was separately charged on Friday under terrorism laws with failing to provide his mobile phone PIN code when he left Britain in July.
Aidan Eardley, a lawyer representing the Solicitor General, told the court that Yaxley-Lennon had been found in contempt on three separate occasions and was jailed for it in 2019. He also has separate criminal convictions.
Judge Jeremy Johnson is expected to sentence Yaxley-Lennon later on Monday. The maximum sentence for contempt of court is two years in prison and an unlimited fine.
Yaxley-Lennon was accused by some media and politicians of inflaming tensions which led to days of rioting across Britain at the end of July in the wake of the murder of three young girls at a dance workshop in Southport.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by William James)
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