Visitor submit by Catherine Blaiklock BP
Tommy Robinson is being held in solitary confinement, in his personal huge isolation block within the coronary heart of Belmarsh Jail. The nice names of Islamic terrorism have all been inmates; the Manchester bombers, the 2005 London bombers, Abu Hamza and Anjem Choudary and an assortment of different mass murderers. There have been secular criminals Ronnie Biggs, the good practice robbers frolicked right here, as did Thomas Mair who murdered Jo Cox. Tommy Robinson is one in every of a tiny quantity civil prisoners are despatched to Belmarsh. He revealed a Fb video of defendants coming into a regulation courtroom however as everybody is aware of, these weren’t strange defendants however a part of a sequence of Muslim rape trials throughout the nation. He was convicted of contempt of courtroom.
We wait to get in amongst a crowd consultant of each nation on the planet, intermixed with a lesser variety of scruffy whites most of whom have been British and dealing class. Suprisingly, given the big variety of Muslim inmates, there was just one Muslim girl customer. Wearing a full size, black abaya her face was solely lined with simply her eyes displaying. An everyday she was pleasant. She confirmed us the best way to the primary of the infinite safety factors. Her palms and fingers have been lined in henna seen at Indian weddings however she was not Indian. A disgruntled customer subsequent to me mumbled that they may not take her finger prints with all that ‘stuff’ on her fingers however who would protest in such an atmosphere, even when true.
We arrive at a big room, considerably like an airport safety corridor. Small teams of about 5 individuals proceeded slowly by means of the complicated. Doorways clanged shut behind us. As we slowly moved in direction of the center of this huge camp doorways opened in entrance of us. We have been herded into areas as tiny as a resort raise.
We entered a sequence of rooms like lifts, coming into by one set of sliding doorways and exiting by one other. At every all of us needed to line up and place one index finger after which the opposite on a flashing display screen. Then we needed to flip in direction of a digital camera for yet one more picture, adopted by our jail issued identification card being electronically checked. This was repeated about ten instances at every set of doorways.
At one level, we arrive at a big room which appeared like an airport safety corridor.
Rings, bangles and sneakers got here off, my mouth and ears checked. Whereas they poked and prodded my physique and I used to be ordered to take away my cardigan to indicate my bra, the lady within the abaya behind me was not requested to undress. As a substitute she momentarily pushed again her headdress in order that they may examine her ears.
Then the three of us who had come to see Britain’s No 1 political prisoner have been separated from the opposite guests, a few of who appeared to be having enjoyable as if it was an off-the-cuff day trip at a fun-fare. Now it was quiet, lethal quiet. No extra enjoyable. Our personal particular warden arrived. He was overly pleasant. Was he a secret supporter? What did he assume? I couldn’t ask, nor may he reply, the partitions in such a spot have ears.
We entered an unlimited walled house the scale of half a soccer pitch: Excessive gates, razor wire, towering partitions, clanging steel. An unlimited, terrifying canine pulling at his stone-faced minder adopted us in. All this only for one prisoner.
We’re proven into Tommy’s visiting room – we didn’t see his cell; a tiny, soiled, plain room, shadowed by a thirty foot wall and missed by a single small sealed window, it smelt putrid and off.
Then Tommy Robinson was introduced in. It was a shock to see he was so quick. He was tiny, nearly unassuming. The media painting him as a lionised, harmful, radicalised determine however right here was somebody who simply appeared small, skinny and drained. He was pale sporting a beard and a brand new haircut with a flouncy quiff that made him seem like an unassuming English instructor.
Shut up, I used to be sitting a foot away from him, it was his eyes that I seen. The woman with me stated that they have been ‘jail eyes’; the eyes of the fearful, the remoted, the fearful. He by no means laughed and barely smiled
We had two hours. He began by describing his lifetime of the previous couple of months.
‘I’ve two hours a day trip of my cell,’ he stated. ‘That’s it. Even the Manchester bomber will get 4 or 5 hours.’
I requested what he did and what number of employees guarded him. Two have been on obligation the entire time he was out of the cell and one when he was locked in his cell.
‘There isn’t a one else right here – nobody. This complete block is empty other than me. I’ve an train bike and books, a TV however no pc.’ He gestured to the horrible gloom beneath the excessive wall, ‘Look outdoors that window.’
‘That’s the tiny house that I’ve to train in. I by no means see the solar and must stroll round and round like a caged animal.’
I requested about emails and letters. For quite a lot of weeks he was not allowed any, then ,for some inexplicable motive, he was allowed to. The letters all needed to be opened and screened in case any individual needed to stuffed an envelope with anthrax spores or explosive. Every e mail was learn after which printed out which meant that the variety of emails he obtained was typically three ft tall. He learn each single one.
He made quite a lot of comparisons concerning the rights and train privileges afforded to Muslims who had murdered versus himself who had shot a fb movie. I considered the Muslim girl within the abaya who was not searched but I used to be.
Tommy moved to his life in Luton; the way it was when he grew up in comparison with now. How everybody (he meant white British individuals) had moved out and the streets had develop into stuffed with individuals completely completely different from him. He was pained and saddened by this however didn’t appear hate stuffed. He didn’t rant.
Did I heat to him? No. I warmed extra our pleasant jail guard – he was too reserved too distant, nevertheless it may have been him reacting to me and reacting to each phrase being recorded and his tiredness of his scenario.
He was very fearful about his life – about regulation fits, rape threats to his daughter, his spouse, and his empty home. He had constructed an home however couldn’t dwell in it due to threats from gangs from two sides, each from Jihadis and from Antifa – though the later have been cowards in comparison with the Jihadis.
An Antifa nutcase spent weeks attempting to work out which protected home he was in by learning each home in a twenty mile radius of Luton till he discovered the place Tommy lived by the print on his curtains. Instantly the intimidation and threats started once more. Tommy and his household would by no means have a settled, protected, steady life in Britain. He must transfer overseas however he won’t ever do this. He’ll combat to the bitter finish.
I requested, ‘What do you wish to do once you get out?’
‘I wish to carry on making movies, exposing what’s going on. It’s nonetheless happening.’
Some cities had solely a really small variety of Muslims, only a few % however there have been nonetheless horrible issues with grooming gangs. He stated if there are a thousand Muslim males between say 18 and 55 in a city, you can see 5 hundred of them are on lists of arrested individuals.
‘There was some woman getting raped. I knew who the 2 males doing it have been. I’ll speak to anybody. I don’t care. I went over to their home to get them to cease. And if I can discover out who’s doing these things, why can’t the police and the authorities?’ ‘In a single case, this group had made a twelve 12 months outdated woman pregnant. They took her to a subject and ‘mounted’ her with a screwdriver up her vaginia.’
He all of a sudden slipped in, ‘All this has been good for me in a technique.’
Perhaps, I believed, he was engaged on the Trump foundation, of all publicity is sweet publicity. Might he presumably have wished to be arrested for the publicity and the celebrity? I didn’t know.
Did I believe he was real ? Sure. Did I believe he was fearful about his future, household and being sued? Sure. Did I believe he would get into bother once more ? Sure. Did I believe he was a bit irresponsible? Sure.
He isn’t somebody who thinks in accountancy or smart phrases. He’s courageous, a showman (even when a bit depressed on the time), a fighter for a trigger he believes in. Seeing an existential menace to this nation, he’ll carry on combating even when it kills him.
Then the interview was over and he was led away, a small determine in a big place,. We left. It took us, one hour to get into the jail, three minutes, the Alsation nonetheless following us, to get out.
I considered Kipling’s poem Tommy Atkins.
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away:”
Tommy Robinson is not going to go away.
