can be quite expensive...
The BBC reports that legal costs in the case are over half a million £.Tommy Robinson loses libel case brought by Syrian schoolboy
The anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson has lost a libel case brought against him by a Syrian schoolboy who was filmed being attacked at school.
The English Defence League founder, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was sued by Jamal Hijazi after an incident in a school playground in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in October 2018.
Shortly after the video of the incident went viral, Robinson falsely claimed in Facebook videos viewed by nearly 1 million people that Hijazi was “not innocent and he violently attacks young English girls in his school”.
He also claimed Hijazi, now 18, “beat a girl black and blue” and “threatened to stab” another boy at his school, allegations the teenager denies.
In a high court judgment on Thursday, Mr Justice Matthew Nicklin said the consequences of Robinson’s falsehoods had been “particularly severe” for Hijazi, to whom he awarded £100,000 in damages.
The judge said Robinson had made Hijazi out to be “a violent aggressor” in the playground incident when he was in fact the victim.
The activist used language “calculated to inflame the situation”, Nicklin said, ultimately causing Hijazi to abandon his education and forcing his family to flee their home.
The teenager received death threats after becoming a target for the far right. Nicklin said the scars from the incident would “likely last for many years, if not a lifetime”.
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The judgment leaves Robinson, who has previously been financially supported by right-leaning groups in the US, facing a heavy monetary penalty at a time when he claims to be bankrupt.
Robinson said he was “gobsmacked” by the costs Hijazi’s lawyers were claiming, which he said included £70,000 for taking witness statements. He added: “I’ve not got any money. I’m bankrupt. I’ve struggled hugely with my own issues these last 12 months … I ain’t got it.”
Nicklin acknowledged there were “limits on what can be enforced against him” as a result of Robinson’s bankruptcy, but ruled he should pay Hijazi’s legal costs, which were not stated in court...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -schoolboy
Poor Tommy Robinson.