Tommy Robinson appeals for early prison release

The far-right anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, has urged the Court of Appeal to let him out of prison early because he says it is making him ill.

In a highly unusual challenge to a sentence, Yaxley-Lennon's lawyers said his segregation from other prisoners at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes was damaging his mental health in ways the judge who sentenced him did not anticipate.

Yaxley-Lennon was jailed for 18 months last October for contempt of court because he ignored an order not to repeat lies about a Syrian refugee.

The appeal will be ruled on at a later date - but last month Yaxley-Lennon lost a closely-related challenge to his segregation in the jail.

The 42-year-old was imprisoned after breaching a court order which has been put in place after he lost a hugely expensive libel trial in 2021.

The former leader of the now-defunct English Defence League had wrongly claimed in a viral video that a Syrian teenager was a violent thug.

Yaxley-Lennon began repeating the false allegation in 2024, including during a rally at London's Trafalgar Square, and ultimately admitted 10 breaches of the court order.

The judge who jailed Yaxley-Lennon last year acknowledged the impact prison would have on him, as it was likely he would need to be separated from other inmates for his own safety.

Yaxley-Lennon was also told the sentence would be cut by four months if he stopped repeating the false claims - something he has not done.

His barrister Alisdair Williamson KC told the Court of Appeal that it should consider fresh evidence that his client suffered from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and ADHD.

Yaxley-Lennon is due to be released on 26 July but his legal team argued there was a medical case for that to be brought forward.

Mr Williamson told the court: "He is being kept safe by the authorities in segregation but being kept safe is making him ill - and more ill than Mr Justice Johnson [the sentencing judge] could have foreseen on the information before him."

His client was "not currently in mental crisis", he said, but had demonstrated harmful behaviours after his previous releases from jail, raising fears in his family that he may try to kill himself.

Yaxley-Lennon is held on a closed wing at Woodhill away from other prisoners, but has contact throughout the day with officers and staff.

He is allowed out of his cell for at least three hours a day and has four hours use of a phone. He has made 1,250 social calls since November.

He has a laptop and access to email, a TV, DVDs and a CD player, the use of a gym and can work as a decorator around the jail - albeit on his own.

As of March, some 120 people had been allowed to see him over 93 visits, more than any other inmate.

The Solicitor General, the government law officer who oversees contempt of court cases, was represented by Aidan Eardley KC for the hearing.

He said there was no evidence the conditions experienced by Yaxley-Lennon were more severe than had been anticipated.

Mr Eardley said: "He remains defiantly in breach of the order [not to repeat the libel] and at the same time comes to this court and asks for an indulgence.

"There is no evidence that this is a condition that has got so bad that it cannot be managed in prison."

Mr Eardley also said that Yaxley-Lennon "complains he cannot watch GB News" on the television he has been given access too.

Yaxley-Lennon watched proceedings via a prison video link and appeared fidgety, occasionally rocking side to side.

At one point he held up a piece of paper claiming that the prison's governor had lied in a statement about his regime and freedoms - but that evidence has not been formally disputed by his legal team in court.

Baroness Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, noticed the sign and said the court would ignore it.

She and other senior judges will rule at a later date.