Anti-grooming gang activist Tommy Robinson has been convicted of harassing two journalists from the Daily Mail newspaper, who accused him of stoking the riots in the wake of the mass stabbing at a children’s dance party in Southport in 2024.
The Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday found Robinson guilty of two counts of harassment causing fear of violence against Daily Mail journalists Andrew Young and Jacob Dirnhuber, for which he faces up to ten years in prison.
In addition to claiming that Robinson had incited the riots, a claim he has consistently denied, the paper also published images of the activist at a property in Cyprus, where he was staying at the time with his family. Robinson claimed the reports exposed his location despite knowing that “people want to kill me.”
In turn, Robinson hired private investigators to uncover the journalists’ private addresses in a bid to “put pressure on them”, the BBC reported.
He told the court he didn’t intend to scare the journalists, but to “bring the Daily Mail to the table”, claiming he had “panicked” after images of his location were published and that he felt it “endangered” his family.
The court also heard that Robinson published the journalists’ personal information on his X account and told Young on a phone call that he was “coming to get” him. The journalists, in turn, claimed to have hired private security and left their homes.
A Met Police spokesman said: “There are legitimate and established routes that can be pursued by people who have concerns or complaints about their treatment by the media.”
However, the Met said that Robinson chose instead to make “threatening online posts in the knowledge that they would almost certainly lead to his followers to target and intimidate those journalists”.
A spokesman for the journalists added: “This kind of intimidatory behaviour is not acceptable, and anyone behaving in such a way to intimidate, harass and threaten others either online or in the real world can expect to be investigated and brought before the courts, as was the case here.”
Responding to the ruling, Robinson wrote on X: “Just insane, the whole fucking thing is insane. We fight on.”
Some have asserted that the case was brought forward in order to silence the prominent activist, including Restore Britain party leader Rupert Lowe, who said Robinson has “not been treated fairly by our establishment for many years, and today is the latest example of that.”
“To be honest, I believe it is a disgrace. He was right on the rape gangs. The state was wrong. They want to vilify him for that,” Lowe argued.
Robinson has been jailed multiple times since becoming a public figure, most recently for contempt of court after breaching an order barring him from repeating claims about a Syrian refugee, who successfully sued him for libel.
He had also previously served a sentence at the high-security Belmarsh Prison for having filmed grooming gang child rapists outside of court. The predominantly Pakistani-heritage men were later found guilty of a “campaign of rape and other sexual abuse” against young girls.