United Kingdom: CFWIJ Condemns Threats To Lizzie Dearden By Tommy Robinson
Location: United Kingdom, London
Date: March 19, 2021Far-right and islamophobic public personality Tommy Robinson threatened to falsely accuse Lizzie Dearden’s partner of being a paedophile to pressurize her into squashing a story about him. Lizzie registered a police complaint regarding the matter and Robinson was subsequently handed a temporary stalking prevention order against Lizzie and her partner. Robinson was not present at the hearing.
After it came to light that Lizzie was pursuing a story revolving around misappropriation of funds by English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson, the latter threatened her with false accusations regarding her romantic partner in order to silence her. On January 17, he arrived at Lizzie’s south-east London home at around 9.50 PM and buzzed the building intercom, demanding that her partner, Samuel Partridge, come out to talk to him. Robinson was also restrained by security officials when he tried to enter the building premises without permission. Robinson then resorted to screaming accusations, reportedly claiming that, “there’s a paedophile living in this building.”
Robinson was arrested for the incident. Upon release he posted two pictures of Partridge online and emailed Lizzie claiming that he has a source who says that Partridge groomed them when they were underaged. These facts were presented to the magistrate court, where the deputy chief magistrate, Tan Ikram, issued a temporary stalking prevention order. According to Ikram the temporary order was “necessary and proportionate” because the acts were “capable of being associated with stalking” and there was an “ongoing risk”.
“What the police say in this case is he has embarked on all of this to persuade her not to publish the story and he sought to do so by the threat of publishing his own allegations about her partner, which it’s said are simply not true,” he said.
The order prevents Robinson from approaching Lizzie and her partner or publishing anything about them online, until and unless he is directly referring to a story published by either.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism welcomes the decision of the magistrate court. Tommy Robinson’s actions were not only reprehensible but criminal. Threatening a journalist by causing harm to her reputation or the reputation of her loved ones is a direct attack on the freedom of the press. We extend our solidarity to Lizzie Dearden and hope sufficient action is taken to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.