On 29 July, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was due to appear in court to face renewed defamation accusations against Jamal Hijazi, the Syrian refugee teenager who was attacked in a sports ground in West Yorkshire. However, he was in a hotel in Cyprus.
After the murder of three girls in Southport that day, Yaxley-Lennon, using the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, used social media to spread misinformation and Islamophobic rhetoric.
Yaxley-Lennon tried to distance himself from the violence as mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers were targeted in attacks.
“Tommy Robinson has become a symbol of the far right” Ben QuinnA senior reporter at the Guardian said: Helen PiddYaxley-Lennon has been a public figure on the far-right for 20 years, during which the movement has become less organised and more fragmented.
“These days, especially in the world of social media, it’s the ability of any given individual to reach out to particularly young men,” Quinn told the Pid, ”and Tommy Robinson is particularly good at that.”
Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Reuters
