The potential abuse of the football banning order. Are Police applying for football banning orders to restrict fans from other activities not linked to football?

As I have reported previously, my client, Tommy Robinson has been served with an application for a football banning order by Bedfordshire Police. It will be argued in Mr Robinson’s defence of the application that this is an attempt to breach his right to freedom of speech and assembly. It is an abuse of the legal process that the football banning order is being used as a ruse to create an exclusion zone in Luton so that he cannot undertake any political protests on Saturdays.

The application for the football banning order has been served by Bedfordshire Police, although it is believed that the real instigator of this application is the Home Office through the UK Football Policing Unit. It is believed that the emergency provisions invoked during the Euro 2016 football tournament were used as an excuse to prevent Mr Robinson from travelling to France and also as a means of introducing the application for the football banning order. Without these emergency provisions neither the police nor UK Football Policing Unit would have had grounds to serve the application on Mr Robinson.

This Football Banning Order application aims to prevent Tommy Robinson from entering the town of Luton for 12 hours on a Saturday when Luton Town FC are playing a home match, and from attending events overseas where England is represented. Without a Football Banning Order, the Home Office would struggle to find a legal mechanism to restrict Mr Robinson’s movements, as his political protests are not unlawful. While some may not agree with his views, Mr Robinson has just as much right to lawful protest as any other individual or group.

Hence it is a logical conclusion that this application is made as an abuse of the Bedfordshire Police power as it is actually an attempt by the Home Office to restrict Mr Robinson’s movement and expression of his political beliefs.

This is compounded by the fact Bedfordshire Police have included Mr Robinson being photographed in France holding a George Cross flag with Fuck ISIS written on it. The police application says this action is likely to incite racial hatred. Clearly, protesting against a banned terrorist organisation which has infiltrated both French and British soil is not inciting racial hatred. Mr Robinson has never stated that he believes that ISIS is linked to the mainstream Muslim faith, but has linked it to islamic extremism, in the same manner that the former Prime Minster, David Cameron, referred to the “Evil of ISIS.”

Mr Robinson was not at a football match while holding up this George Cross for the photograph. He was not even in the same town in which the England national football team were playing. Police intelligence reports state that it was believed that Mr Robinson would not attend the football matches in the South of France as he did not want to be in a position where his presence could be linked to any disorder, so how can it be argued that this is a valid application required to prevent Mr Robinson causing violence or disorder at football matches?

Mr Robinson is deeply concerned that in order to bolster this weak application, Bedfordshire Police has placed misleading information in front of the court. In particular, the application states that he was convicted of an offence of affray on Remembrance Day 2010. This is not true. In reality Mr Robinson was convicted of causing harassment alarm or distress to persons who were purposely burning replica poppies. Mr Robinson jumped a barrier to stop the deliberate insult to those who have given their lives fighting for their country. The irony is that Mr Robinson received a stronger sentence than the £50 fine imposed on those who were burning the replica poppies, and at least some of those supporting and encouraging the burning of the replica poppies are now either facing charges or have already been convicted of supporting or inciting support for a banned organisation (ISIS), including one person who was, just this week, sentenced to five and a half years in prison for inciting support for a banned terrorist organisation.

Mr Robinson has a court hearing on 19th September 2016. An update will be provided after that hearing.