What I saw at the Tommy Robinson hearing today

By Rebel News | Created at 2025-03-21 00:41:20 | Updated at 2025-04-05 05:57:15 2 weeks ago

Today Tommy Robinson had a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice. The judge was Martin Chamberlain. The question at hand was this: are Tommy’s prison conditions dire enough that he needs an expedited hearing to review how the prison is treating him?

As in: are things so bad that the courts need to move very quickly to review things — as opposed to their normal, slow pace?

On Tommy’s team was prison lawyer Sara Watson and a barrister named Alisdair Williamson, KC. (Williamson was Tommy’s successful lawyer last year, when the Metropolitan Police tried to ban Tommy from going into the city of London. He’s really good.)

On the other side was a battery of government lawyers — I counted four, led by Tom Cross, KC. Just stop for a moment to think about that: the UK government hired FOUR lawyers, at taxpayers expense, to fight against Tommy Robinson’s request to have an expediting hearing to review his atrocious treatment in prison. They probably spent more than £150,000 of tax dollars just on today’s battle. (Imagine if Keir Starmer put that much energy and effort into fighting real crime in the UK.)

It’s not justice. It’s a vendetta.

I’ve attended a lot of trials for Tommy over the years; he’s won some and he’s lost some. But this one felt good. Tommy’s team had a report from an expert psychologist who went to prison to examine Tommy. She found that, being kept in a small cell 21 hours a day, for more than 140 days, has induced a kind of PTSD in Tommy. The government didn’t even try to contradict those findings.

They did, however, try to say that Tommy had all the privileges he could ask for, including visits, phone calls, a computer, TV and the like.

But as the government lawyer was saying that, Tommy — who was on a video link from prison — started waving his hands, signalling to the judge that he had something to say. The judge stopped the proceedings and invited Williamson to phone Tommy to see what the fuss was about. The court took a half hour break.

And then something incredible happened.

The government lawyer had just been bragging about how luxurious Tommy’s treatment was — including how many phone calls he could make. But when the court resumed, Tommy held up a sign to the video camera in his prison video room. And on it, he wrote that the prison had cut off the phone call in the middle of his conversation with Williamson!

The judge saw that note and asked what happened. And indeed it was true: literally in the middle of Tommy’s conversation with Williamson, the bullies at the prison cut off the phone call, as they have done to him so many times before.

As Williamson said to the judge, the one act of misconduct that the entire court witnessed proved that when it came to Tommy, there’s a big difference between what the prison says and what the prison does.

The judge was angry — remember, it was he who had asked Williamson to consult with Tommy; it was an important part of the hearing, to make sure the judge had all the facts. The bullies at the prison weren’t just messing around with Tommy this time; they were messing around with a judge.

The judge tore a strip off the government lawyer, and had a one-hour break for Tommy to talk to his lawyers properly. When we all resumed, the judge said the prison’s shenanigans had delayed things so much, the judge wasn’t ready to release his ruling today — he’ll do that tomorrow.

What a note to end on.

I’m not saying it’s a sure thing that Tommy is going to win. But it couldn’t have been a clearer illustration of how the prison casually abuses Tommy, and gaslights him about it. Except this time, they didn’t seem to realize they were fighting with the judge, too.

It was quite a dramatic moment.

I spoke to Williamson after the hearing, and he says he’ll share the ruling with me tomorrow when the judge releases it — I’ll make sure to send you an email with the results as soon as I can.

What a day.

I’m on my way back to Canada now, but I’m very glad I came. My live-tweeting had millions of views today from around the world — a lot of people are interested in Tommy’s case. There were a few journalists there from the mainstream media, including a few real Tommy-haters. I recognized one of them from the BBC. So it feels great knowing that my tweets and videos will have far more viewers than their anti-Tommy propaganda.

I’m so glad I came!

My flight from Canada was seven hours each way, plus the taxi ride in from Heathrow was another hour each way. That’s a sixteen hour round-trip journey, for just a few hours in court. But I’m really glad I made the trip.

If you can help chip in to cover the cost of my airfare and taxis today, I’d be grateful — it was around $1,000 (or £500) for me to make the trip. Unlike the BBC, I don’t get any government money, and it shows! You can help out right here. (Thank you.)