Tommy Robinson’s hearing at the UK Court of Appeal was held today. It wasn’t long — just 75 minutes. Tommy himself joined by video link from prison, but he wasn’t allowed to say anything, he could just observe. Tommy had an excellent lawyer, a senior barrister named Alisdair Williamson, KC. Williamson was the barrister who won an important case for Tommy against the Metropolitan Police, when they illegally banned him from entering London. Today’s appeal was for the sentence Tommy received for his contempt of court conviction. Normally, an appeal is just on the existing record — that is, the evidence that was heard by the sentencing judge. There is no new evidence; it’s not a do-over. The higher court merely weighs whether or not the trial judge got it right or wrong. Williamson made the case today that there was important “fresh evidence” that the Court of Appeal should consider — namely, that an independent psychologist has visited Tommy in prison, and written up a detailed, 39-page diagnosis of his mental health after so many months in solitary confinement. Williamson said that information was obviously not in the hands of the sentencing judge, but the Court of Appeal should consider it. The government’s main lawyer was Aidan Eardley, KC. I felt like he was weaker. And his argument in response to the psychologist’s report was essentially, “so what?” As in, he didn’t care that Tommy was being made mentally ill by keeping him in isolation; he told the three-judge panel that if Tommy really wanted to get out of prison, he should just delete the Twitter video that got him thrown in prison in the first place. Here’s a ten-minute video that I recorded right after the hearing was over: 
I thought Tommy’s lawyers did well. But appeals are inherently uphill battles. Higher courts are reluctant to overturn lower courts unless the trial judge got something very wrong. It’s up to the Court of Appeal to decide whether to allow that fresh evidence in, and whether to give it any weight. I’m really starting to worry that it is now impossible for Tommy to get justice in the UK legal system. He has been so demonized, and the government is so obviously pursuing a vendetta, he really has become an “enemy of the state”, as his book is titled. I saw a story in the Times of London last week that said on any given day in the UK, police arrest 30 people for social media posts. 30 per day! Frankly, I doubt Russia’s Vladimir Putin arrests that many for social media posts. An entire system has been built to censor ideas and block people from speaking out. Tommy has been the “test case” for that. The judges concluded by saying they’ll release their ruling in the days ahead. I’m not optimistic, but you never know — remember, Tommy beat the Met Police in court, and that was the same lawyer. He’ll keep fighting for freedom. And the least I can do is keep going to court to live-tweet about it, to ensure that the mainstream media isn’t the only source of news as to what happened. Ezra Levant Rebel News |
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