Tommy Robinson, a British activist jailed for the past seven months for breaking the United Kingdom’s speech laws, was granted an early release from prison on Tuesday.
Robinson, also known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was serving an 18-month sentence since October 2024 for disobeying a court injunction prohibiting him from showing a controversial documentary in Britain.
The documentary, Silenced, defended British high schooler Bailey McLaren from allegations that he bullied his classmate Jamal Hijazi. After British courts ruled in Hijazi’s favor, Robinson argued in Silenced that Hijazi had threatened to rape McLaren’s sisters, among other accusations. Robinson claimed the case against McLaren amounted to an unfair smear campaign that brought the teenager to the brink of suicide.
After Hijzazi successfully sued Robinson for libel, the activist refused to comply with a court order prohibiting him from showing the documentary, leading to his arrest and detainment in solitary confinement since last fall.
However, on Tuesday, Justice Jeremy Johnson allowed Robinson to walk free on parole 11 months early because the British activist agreed to comply with the injunction prohibiting him from discussing the McLaren-Hijazi case or showing Silenced.
In a 20-minute speech outside the prison, a bearded Robinson condemned Britain’s speech laws and the country’s “ridiculous” attempt “at censorship, to silence, to cancel people.” He claimed the U.K. is targeting him because of his coverage of Islamic gangs operating in the country that raped children across England with little consequences for years.
Robinson also thanked self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist Elon Musk for rising to his defense in recent months. Musk, the owner of X, one of the largest social media platforms in the world, shared Silenced with his followers. He called for Robinson to be freed, and questioned why “police state” Britain sentenced the activist to 18 months in solitary confinement, “despite doing nothing violent.”
“Sixteen years ago, when I first started speaking out against Islamic rape gangs that were plaguing this country — from that point on, I faced relentless attacks from the British state wielding lawfare as a weapon in order to silence me,” Robinson said Tuesday as he criticized England, which has some of the most aggressive speech laws in the West. “I’ve never been convicted by a jury. Every one of my convictions has been handed down to me by judges … I have to say thank you to Elon Musk, because without X, if we didn’t have X, everyone would just think I lied. No one would have got any other narrative.”
Robinson said that Silenced was viewed by 167 million people due to Musk’s X and said after his release that he has “absolutely zero regrets” about promoting the documentary despite his imprisonment.
“These attempts at censorship, to silence, to cancel people — it hasn’t worked,” he said. “I knew exactly what I was doing when I released that film. I knew I’d end up in there, and I also knew they’d give them every opportunity to pull every trick they wanted to, from messing with visits to messing with phone calls to messing with food. I knew that I made the decision to release that film because the British public deserves to see the truth.”
TOMMY HAS BEEN FREED FROM PRISON!!!
— Tommy Robinson
(@TRobinsonNewEra) May 27, 2025
While Robinson was ordered to pay over $125,000 in libel damages and legal fees for his claims about Hijazi, the activist defied the government’s injunction when he showed Silenced in London’s Trafalgar Square last July.
In December, Musk asked: “Why are rapists given suspended sentences in the UK, but [Robinson] gets 18 months in solitary confinement, despite doing nothing violent?”
Robinson’s original sentence consisted of a 14-month “punitive” element and a four-month “coercive” element, according to the Telegraph. Johnson said in October that the four-month sentence could be removed if Robinson were to “purge” his contempt by taking steps to comply with the injunction.
Robinson applied to purge his contempt earlier this month, telling the court he had shown “commitment” to comply with the injunction.
Johnson said in his ruling on Tuesday that while there was an “absence of contrition or remorse,” Robinson had shown a “change in attitude” since he was sentenced.
MUSK EYES CONNECTION BETWEEN BRITAIN’S GROOMING GANGS AND CENSORSHIP
The judge said, “He [Robinson] has given an assurance that he will comply with the injunction in the future, that he has no intention of breaching it again, and that he is aware of the consequences of what would happen if he breached the injunction again.”
He continued, “I consider it appropriate to grant the application.”