Mr Yaxley-Lennon admitted 10 breaches of an injunction imposed on him by Nicklin J in the libel case of Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon, including publishing online a film that repeated the libel.
Johnson J committed him to prison for 18 months (less 3 days for time spent in custody on remand) comprising a punitive element of 14 months and a coercive element of 4 months, which would be remitted if Mr Yaxley-Lennon were to remove his film from his social media accounts and take all possible steps to secure its removal from other online sources.
Mr Yaxley-Lennon brought an out-of-time appeal against the penalty, contending that, because he was being segregated from other prisoners for his own safety, prison conditions were harsher than Johnson J had anticipated and, in reliance on a recently obtained psychologist’s report, that his imprisonment had caused his mental health to deteriorate and that he had been suffering from undiagnosed ADHD at the time of sentence.
The Court of Appeal granted an extension of time and permitted reliance on the psychologist’s report but dismissed the appeal. The prison conditions were not materially harsher or more onerous than the Judge foresaw. There had been some evidence about Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s mental health before Johnson J and the new medical evidence did not show either a significant exacerbation of a known condition or a material new factor.
