Judge rules Tommy Robinson’s Terrorism charge “Unlawful and Politically Motivated”
- Norman Fenton
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
My personal reflections
Background
Early on 28 July 2024, the day after he held an enormous rally in Trafalgar Square, Tommy Robinson (“also known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon” as the mainstream media love to remind us) was arrested at Folkestone under the prevention of terrorism act while on his way to Spain. This arrest eventually led to a two-day trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 13 -14 October 2025, with the Judgement on 4 November 2025.
District Judge Sam Goozée acquitted Robinson. I strongly encourage you to read the full transcript of his ruling, which can be found here. The key finding was that the arrest was unlawful because it was driven by Robinson's political views. Here is an example screenshot from the ruling:
The Judge's ruling is a scathing criticism of the entire prosecution case and a damning indictment of how counter-terrorism powers were exercised. The judge condemned the prosecution’s evidence as deeply flawed, poorly recorded, and legally unsustainable. He described the police evidence as confused, inconsistent, and unreliable. The judgment amounts to a clear warning against the misuse of terrorism powers for political profiling, reaffirming that personal beliefs cannot lawfully justify detention or prosecution.
I attended both days of the trial as well as the judgement. There are already many excellent and detailed accounts about it, such as this by Kathy Gyngell, so I will restrict this report to my personal reflections.
Declaration of Interest
First, however, I must declare an interest. I have expressed support for Tommy Robinson (who I will hereby refer to as TR) on numerous occasions. I did this (albeit in a somewhat muted way) even before I ‘retired’ from Queen Mary University in 2022 and am probably the only UK Professor to have done so. Since leaving Queen Mary I have been more publicly vocal, including making this speech at his large rally in Whitehall in February 2025:
It is the reason why, for example, the Hope Not Hate Organisation described me as “Mathematician turned far-right Professor Norman Fenton”.
My views on the case
I believe this case should never have been brought to court. This was clear to me as soon as we heard of TR’s arrest in July 2024. That’s because the primary reason for detaining him (as subsequently confirmed by the judge) must obviously have been his political beliefs and this cannot be used as a reason for detention under the prevention of terrorism act. Indeed, one important point from the trial which I have not seen reported anywhere else is that the prosecuting barrister (in her summing up on the second day) admitted in court that they never believed that TR was a terrorist or involved in any terrorist activities. She also admitted that “there was not significant quality of evidence for his detention”. So why did the CPS continue with the case?
Taking account of the State resources required to:
detain and arrest TR;
employ multiple lawyers and assistants to prosecute the case;
have several dozen police officers outside of court on each of the three days of the trial and judgement,
the total cost to taxpayers must have been at least £150,000. TR’s defence costs (mainly funded by Elon Musk) were also approximately £100,000.
What shocked me most about the trial is that it was clear from the very first prosecution witness, PC Thoroughgood, that there should have been no case to answer as the police broke every rule relating to the prevention of terrorism act. This PC looked as if he was a fresh recruit straight out of University. Perhaps he felt he could make a name for himself for nabbing the notorious TR? His ‘evidence’ was derisory and at times quite laughable. His decision to detain TR was made in just 34 seconds and was based entirely on the ‘facts’ that TR:
was driving a high-value car on his own
bought his channel tunnel ticket on arrival at the terminal – something the PC considered "unusual" because "it would have been cheaper to book in advance".
was travelling to Benidorm in Spain, which the PC considered was an “unusually long journey”.
gave “vague answers” to questions about his travel arrangements
Here is a screenshot from the Judge's ruling about PC Thoroughgood's evidence:
In my view all three Police witnesses (one of whom was on the second day) were an embarrassment to their profession. Even the prosecuting barrister admitted in her summing up that they failed to follow procedures correctly. But what I found most shocking about all three was not just their sheer incompetence, but rather the fact that all of them stated that what drove their concern about TR was (their pre-conceived) view that TR was a ‘far right extremist’ and ‘Islamophobe’. This suggests that there has been a concerted effort to brainwash every police officer into accepting the much-repeated claim that far right extremists (rather than Islamists) are the biggest threat to the UK. Bearing in mind that these officers were all part of the anti-terrorist brigade, it also explains why harmless people like Lucy Connolly and Peter Lynch were imprisoned while some known violent Islamists roam the streets freely.
I summarised my views about the first day of the trial in this short interview with Potkin Azarmehr:
The fact that the judge was allowing the trial to go to a second day worried me, as did his comments about the ‘accredited media’. He declared that only ‘accredited media reporters’ could report live on the case. That is why, for example, the only information the wider public heard about the case was that TR was driving a silver Bentley and carrying a lot of cash, ignoring the undisputed fact that his barrister had eviscerated the entire prosecution case.
The judge specifically excluded Ezra Levant of Rebel News (as well as other independent media) from live reporting even though Ezra stated that he was internationally accredited and could provide proof of that. Apparently, the BBC reporter had complained to the Judge about Ezra’s reporting. The judge said he would make a ruling about Ezra at the start of the second day. As it turned out the Judge ruled that Ezra could live report on that second day, but that he reserved the right to stop him if there was any ‘bias’ in the reporting. What really concerned me was that the judge said that only the accredited media could be relied on to report with accuracy and without any "misinformation". As these ‘accredited media’ were clearly universally biased against TR, that indicated to me that he was not going to be sympathetic to TRs defence. In fact, during that second day after the judge accepted him as accredited, Ezra was forcibly removed from the courtroom while he was sitting alongside the accredited media. Again, this seems to have been at the request of the BBC journalist.
Given the obvious flaws in the prosecution case, those of us in the spectators’ gallery (and its overflow) were hoping that, after the summing up statements from both sides, the Judge would dismiss the case. So, we were extremely disappointed and concerned to hear him state he was going to defer his judgement until a later date. He suggested 21 October, but TR’s Barrister stated that TR would be in Israel until 24 October at the invitation of Israeli Government ministers. Eventually the date of 4 November was agreed by both sides. It is interesting to note the misleading way the mainstream media covered the delay in the judgement. Note that nowhere in this (typical) report is there any mention of the fact that the Judge had already announced a delay until 21 October:
I reported on the second day’s events here.
The Judgement day
Because of the delay in judgement (and the expectation that political pressure might be applied to the Judge despite the flawed prosection case), I was not particularly hopeful that TR would be acquitted when we went into court on 4 November. The previous day TR had posted a sombre video saying he thought he would be sent to prison as usual. I think this explains why fewer of his supporters were at the court. TR turned up wearing a hoodie as if he was resigned to being sent down, rather than in a suit as he did during the trial.
In the public gallery it was difficult to hear the judge as he started to read his 40-minute long judgement. I was concerned that his initial focus was on a precedent case in which the defendant had been found guilty under the prevention of terrorism act despite paucity of evidence. However, as soon as the judge started to review the evidence in TR’s case it became clear that he was contemptuous of the prosecution case. A friend who I was sitting with whispered their concern that the judge might still end by saying “the prosecution case was junk but I’m going to announce you guilty anyway”. However, the intensity of his complaints about the prosecution case became so great that, even 10 minutes before he announced the verdict, even the most pessimistic among us knew TR would be acquitted. Apparently, the roar from the public gallery when it was finally announced could be heard from those waiting outside the court building.
When it was all over TR came out of the building to the usual media scrum and gave his main interview (also as usual) to Wendell Daniel of Urban Scoop. But he did find time to challenge a couple of mainstream reporters who were there. While relieved at the verdict and looking forward to being with his family, TR was (quite reasonably) angry that he had been put through this grinding legal order yet again and noted that he was still facing an even more ludicrous case in court next October (concerning the threats against the Daily Mail reporters which carries a sentence of up to 10 years if convicted). As he said, even though he was acquitted today, the process is the punishment, and he would surely have been convicted this time if Elon Musk had not paid for his outstanding defence barrister. TR explained all of this in his interview with Mahyar Tousi later in the day:
What next?
What may make a change now in the continuous State harassment of TR is the formal acknowledgement in a court of law that he has been targeted purely for his political views and not for any crime. Also, while TR continues to be demonised by the entire mainstream media (and denied access to it to defend himself against their lies), there is a steadily increasing number of public figures who are now prepared to come out in his support. Previously, simply refusing to condemn TR would be sufficient to end a person’s career. Hopefully, that is now slowly changing and the judgement in this case provides the indisputable evidence of how unfairly TR has been treated. It may even make it more difficult for the Government to come up with new trumped-up charges against him. We can but hope.
