The High Court sitting at Woolwich has sentenced Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to 18 months imprisonment (less 3 days) for contempt of court. On the first day of a 2-day hearing, Mr Yaxley-Lennon admitted 10 breaches of a final injunction imposed on him by Nicklin J in the libel case of Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon in 2021. Four of the breaches concerned the publication of his film “silenced”, including by playing it on giant screens in Trafalgar Square and posting it on X where it has received some 44 million views. The remaining breaches concerned online interviews in which Mr Yaxley-Lennon repeated allegations that had been the subject of the libel action. Johnson J stipulated that 4 months of the sentence is “coercive”, i.e. it would be open to Mr Yaxley-Lennon to apply to have that part of the sentence discharged if he were to show a commitment to complying with the injunction in the future, e.g. by removing the film from social media. The Court also awarded the Solicitor General her costs of the proceedings.
5RB’s Aidan Eardley KC was leading counsel for the Solicitor General, instructed by the Government Legal Department.
The full judgment can be found here.