Watch Tommy Robinson’s prison fight following ‘threats from Muslim extremists’ https://t.co/6Htf1hArI3 via @IBTimesUK
— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) May 4, 2016
Watch Tommy Robinson’s prison brawl following ‘threats from Muslim extremists’
Paul Wright By Paul Wright
May 4, 2016 13:04 BST
This is the extraordinary moment former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson exchanges blows with a prison inmate after allegedly being told a bounty had been put on his head. The fight, which lasts just seconds, sees Robinson launch into a fellow prisoner and knock him back with a series of punches to the body and face.
After other inmates scramble out of his way, Robinson then appears to calmly walk off, leaving his target reeling. The altercation, which occurred at Peterborough Prison in July 2015 during the last few days of Robinson’s sentence for mortgage fraud, was said by the 33-year-old to be an “act of self-defence”.
He claims moments before the fight he had been warned a group of Muslim prisoners had offered a reward for anyone who assaulted the ex-EDL leader. Robinson said: “I’m leaning up against the wall and a bloke comes stand next to me and he says: ‘Mate, you’re gonna get done with boiling water – £500, half-ounce of Spice [a psychoactive drug] and a mobile phone have been put up to have you done,’
“They put boiling water with sugar and it takes your face off.” He adds: “The prison system is plagued with… extremist Islam and Muslim gangs.”
His case is to feature in an upcoming episode of Channel 4 documentary series 24 Hours in Police Custody. Viewers will see Robinson, who now helps lead anti-Islam group Pegida UK, being interviewed by Bedfordshire Police after initially being arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault. He was eventually charged with a lesser offence of assault.
While the episode gives a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse at how the criminal justice system works in the UK, it also offers an inside look into rampant prison violence. Peterborough Prison saw over 1,000 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults between 2010 and 2014, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Justice. There have been a further 371 assaults on prison staff over the same period.
