A top officer of London’s Metropolitan Police admitted at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court that a dispersal order banning activist and self-styled citizen journalist Tommy Robinson from a protest in the city may have been unlawful.
Tommy Robinson, 40, was arrested on November 26th for allegedly refusing to comply with an order to leave Westminster after the Campaign for Antisemitism reportedly told police that he would not be welcome at a demonstration they were holding in the area at the time, despite Robinson’s long history of supporting Israel and the Jewish people.
During a hearing on Monday, Met Police Inspector Steve Parker-Phipps told the court that he had made an error on the dispersal order against Robinson, the BBC reports, claiming that due to his laptop battery “dying”, he mistakenly put the date of November 24 on the form rather than November 26th, the day of the protest.
Robinson’s barrister Alisdair Williamson KC asked the inspector: “This document is not correct, is it?… Can we have any confidence that there was a lawful order in place?”
“No,” replied Inspector Parker-Phipps.
Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon (centre) outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court, central London, where he is accused of failing to comply with a direction to leave an antisemitism march in Westminster on November 26 of last year. Robinson was arrested near the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where the demonstration began, after organisers said he would not be welcome at the event. Picture date: Monday April 22, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)
For allegedly failing to comply with the dispersal order, Robinson was doused with synthetic pepper spray, handcuffed, and arrested by the police.
Prosecutor Jonathan Bryan told the court that the activist had become “resistant” following the order to leave the area.
“Organisers of the protest had made it clear they didn’t want his presence,” Mr Bryan said, adding: “He wouldn’t leave the area.”
Robinson has denied refusing to comply with the dispersal order and said outside the courthouse on Monday that police body-cam footage, which officers allegedly said had been deleted, would have shown him informing police that he needed to wait for his colleague to bring him his car keys before leaving the area.
Robinson also asserted on Monday that he was not within the prohibited zone at the time of his arrest and that the police had not taken into consideration his position as an independent journalist when ordering him to leave the area.
The trial continues…