LONDON (Reuters) -British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, went on trial on Monday accused of refusing to give police his phone PIN when stopped under counter-terrorism laws, and said billionaire Elon Musk was funding his defence.
Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson, has become a flag-bearer for some British nationalists and one of Britain’s most high-profile anti-migration campaigners, recently organising a large rally in London attended by about 150,000 people.
He said in a video posted on social media before his trial at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court that Musk, who often reposts his messages on X and appeared at the rally by videolink, had “picked up the legal bill for this absolute state persecution”.
Yaxley-Lennon, 42, was detained by police under counter-terrorism powers in July 2024 as he drove a silver Bentley through border security at the Channel Tunnel train terminal in southeast England, prosecutor Jo Morris said.
The officer involved said he had become suspicious because of the high-value vehicle, Yaxley-Lennon’s demeanour as he refused to maintain eye contact, and because he was on his own, and had said he was driving to Benidorm in southern Spain.
He and colleagues seized Yaxley-Lennon’s phone and asked him to provide the password number. But he refused, saying he was a journalist and it contained privileged material.
Yaxley-Lennon says he is targeted by the state for exposing wrongdoing but is denounced by critics as a far-right rabble-rouser with a string of criminal convictions. He denies wilfully failing to comply with a duty imposed by the Terrorism Act. The two-day trial is due to finish on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by William Maclean)
Comments