Questions have been asked about how far-right activist Tommy Robinson was able to travel to the US and visit the State Department despite being banned from the country after a 2012 attempt to enter the US on a false passport.
Posts on social media show Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, meeting senior State Department officials, Republican congressmen and Donald Trump’s former national security adviser General Michael Flynn during the visit last month. Robinson had been banned from flying to the US due to his criminal past, and was previously denied a US visa in 2018. “It is not known who lifted Robinson’s ban and granted his visa, which he reportedly received hours before his flight departed,” said The i Paper.
Sara Khan, the UK’s former counter-extremism commissioner, told NBC News she was “disappointed” to see Robinson welcomed to the US given he has a “history of criminal convictions as long as my arm”.
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Robinson has largely relied on donations to fund his legal battles and his lifestyle. These consist mainly of relatively small amounts from individual supporters, but Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is believed to have covered Robinson’s legal fees in a terror offence trial last November, which Robinson claimed amounted to “nearly £100,000”, The London Economic reported.
Here is a history of Robinson’s turbulent legal troubles.
2005 – Assault
Robinson was first convicted back in 2005 for assaulting an off-duty police officer who had “intervened in a bid to protect the EDL founder’s girlfriend” as they argued in the street, said The Mirror. Robinson was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
2011 – Assault
Robinson was convicted of assault again in 2011, receiving a suspended sentence for butting a man at an EDL rally in Blackburn.
2011 – Community order
In July 2011, Robinson was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order for leading a brawl that involved more than 100 football fans in Luton in August 2010.
Robinson had denied the charges and claimed outside the court that he had been “persecuted for his right-wing beliefs”, said the BBC at the time. He was found guilty and was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £650 in costs.
2013 – False passport
Robinson was then jailed in 2013 for using a false passport, having attempted to use someone else’s to enter the US. He had “previously been refused entry to the US”, said The Independent, and borrowed the passport of his friend, Andrew McMaster, in addition to carrying his own.
On arrival in New York, “he was caught when customs officials at JFK airport took his fingerprints and realised he was not Mr McMaster”. Before they could follow up, Robinson “left the airport, entering the US illegally”.
After returning to the UK, using his own passport, he was arrested and admitted to the charges in court, receiving a 10-month prison sentence.
2014 – Mortgage fraud
In January 2014, Robinson was given an 18-month prison sentence for “conspiring with others to obtain a mortgage by misrepresentation from the Abbey and Halifax banks”, said The Guardian.
By that point he had left the EDL, “claiming he had concerns over far-right extremism”. However, he posted on social media that his criminal conviction was “a complete stitch-up”.
2019 – Contempt of court
Robinson was again jailed in 2019 for contempt of court after interfering with a grooming gang trial by livestreaming on Facebook outside Leeds Crown Court in 2018.
Judges said Robinson had called for “vigilante action” during the hour-and-a-half broadcast while the jury considered its verdict. The livestream was viewed more than 250,000 times, and called on supporters to “harass a defendant by finding him, knocking on his door, following him, and watching him”, judges said.
He was given six months for his offence in Leeds, and a further three for a similar offence committed in 2017 outside Canterbury Crown Court, for which he had received a suspended sentence.
2021 – Stalking
The next brush with the law came after The Independent journalist Lizzie Dearden and her boyfriend Samuel Partridge reported Robinson to the police for stalking, in January 2021.
Robinson “stood outside Dearden’s house and shouted unsubstantiated allegations about Partridge” and “threatened to repeatedly return to her address”, said The Guardian. He had found her address through a private investigator after she had enquired through his legal team about an alleged misuse of money donated by his supporters.
Robinson was given a five-year stalking protection order in October 2021 and prohibited from contacting them, going to their place of work or home, or publishing anything about them.
2024 – Contempt of court
Robinson was jailed again for contempt of court for being in breach of an injunction by repeating false allegations about a Syrian refugee.
In 2021, Robinson lost a libel case brought against him by Jamal Hijazi, whom he had falsely accused of being “not innocent” and violent towards girls at his school after a video of Hijazi being attacked by fellow pupils went viral.
The false allegations were repeated numerous times in a film that Robinson had made, called “Silenced”, resulting in 10 breaches of a High Court order. He was given an 18-month sentence, but was released after seven months in May last year.
2025 – Cleared of terrorism charges
In October last year, Robinson went on trial for refusing to comply with a request made by counter-terrorism police as he tried to leave the UK. After being stopped by police at the Channel Tunnel on his way to Spain, he refused to hand over the PIN for his phone because it had “journalistic material on it”. Police had requested access to his iPhone under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act after Robinson gave what they described as “vague replies” to questions.
He was found not guilty following a two-day trial, after his defence team successfully argued police had engaged in a “fishing expedition” and that there was no evidence from the UK’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, to suggest he was a terrorist. Leaving court Robinson said he was “forever grateful” to Elon Musk for funding his latest legal fight and keeping him out of jail.