Why The Free Tommy Robinson Protesters Are All Wrong: Nick Ferrari

11 June 2018, 07:53 | Updated: 23 October 2018, 15:16

Nick Ferrari told the hundreds of protesters against the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson have got it wrong.

Violent scenes erupted on Saturday as hundreds of demonstrators marched through London against the jailing of the former far-right leader.

But Nick explained why they've got it wrong.

Speaking on his LBC show, he said: "Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was detained outside Leeds Crown Court last month after using social media to broadcast details of an ongoing trial which issubject to blanket reporting restrictions.

"A judge told him his actions could cause the ongoing trial to be rerun, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. In the footage, which was played to the court at the time, he was seen filming himself and people involved in the trial. Now the footage, which supposedly lasted around an hour, was watched over a quarter million times within hours.

"He was given ten months in jail for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching a previous suspended sentence.

"And this is what it turns on... this is the second time he's committed this offence after being told he was "on a knife edge" when he was sentenced almost twelve months before to the day, May 2017, for trying to film four men accused of gang raping a teenage girl who was standing trial at Canterbury Crown court in Kent last year.

"I know many of you get very excited about this and think that Robinson has been unfairly dealt with. He has not.

"These reporting restrictions you will learn are there for good reason and you cannot have people deciding just to take the law into their own hands and totally ignoring signs. Any of you who have ever been to a court will know that the signs are very prominent, you're not allowed to film people as they arrive if they're standing for trial, you're not allowed to film their families, you're not allowed to film jurors, it is as simple as that.

"So for those of you who can't see why this man, it's wholly correct that be's behind bars, I don't quite know what it'll take for the penny to drop."