A bearded Tommy Robinson was released from prison today after serving nine weeks behind bars for contempt of court.
The English Defence League founder emerged with the beard and uncut hair, as he waved at supporters gathered outside HMP Belmarsh in south-east London.
Photographs and video posted on social media showed Robinson smiling as he was interviewed.
He said: ‘First stop, hairdressers’ and added: ‘Here’s the crazy thing. I walked into Belmarsh prison and walked out, without seeing another prisoner, for my safety.’
Robinson was jailed in July for live-streaming a video which featured defendants in an Asian sex grooming trial and put the case at risk of collapse.
He has spent nine weeks in the Category A prison where he was held in solitary confinement and complained he was like a ‘caged animal’.
The time he previously spent behind bars for the contempt was taken into account, reducing his sentence to 19 weeks – of which he would serve half before being released.
Supporters had gathered outside the prison, including a man who tweeted photos of the scene and wrote: ‘At #Belmarsh to collect #TommyRobinson.’
It emerged last night that he was staying in the same cell that once housed Michael Adebolajo – who brutally hacked off-duty soldier Lee Rigby to death in South-East London in 2013.
Bearded Tommy Robinson has been released from prison after serving nine weeks behind bars for contempt of court
In a video taken after he merged from the prison he said: ‘First stop, hairdressers’
The 36-year-old English Defence League founder is pictured, arriving for his sentencing at the Old Bailey in July
Breitbart News reported that Robinson was confined to his cell from 11am every day, and only let out of solitary confinement for an hour every morning which he spends ‘trudging around a grim prison yard’.
He is also allowed another hour in the cell next door to his where he can use an exercise bike. And on occasion he is permitted to visit the prison gym.
The arrangement, it is claimed, was for his own safety. There are concerns he may have been targeted by other inmates at the prison should he be let out. His window is also kept closed, after excrement was reportedly thrown through it.
His latest stint marks the second time he’s found himself in prison for contempt of court.
He was jailed for 13 months after he filmed defendants during the trial of the sexual exploitation of girls at Leeds Crown Court Trial in 2018.
He eventually got out on appeal, and after his release said he’d been the victim of a ‘kangaroo court’ and complained he had lost ‘nearly 40lb’ in prison after living on a diet of one tin of tuna and a piece of fruit a day.
Ezra Levant, the editor of far-right publication Rebel Media, has also visited Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, in prison.
The Canadian media mogul claimed Robinson is being kept in a High Security Unit – accommodation which is usually reserved for ‘Islamists’ or high-profile murderers.
He told the publication: ‘He’s isolated from all other prisoners, he has no contact.
‘It’s solitary confinement in that he’s not allowed to see any other prisoners, but it’s not like in HMP Onley… here, he’s allowed half an hour on the exercise bike, the prison governor himself visits once a day, he has a medical once a day, he’s not being starved.’
It was also reported by Breitbart News that Robinson is looking ‘much healthier’ as he came towards the end of his stint at Belmarsh.
The prison houses convicted terrorists and murderers, and people convicted of serious crimes, including black cab rapist John Worboys.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is also being held there as the US attempts to extradite him for hacking offences.
In his contempt of court hearing he claimed he did not believe he was breaching reporting restrictions when he filmed the suspects on trial over the sexual exploitation of young girls.
The reporting ban in place postponed the publication of any details about the case until the end of a series of linked trials involving 29 defendants.
He broadcast the footage from outside Leeds Crown Court on in May 2018 while the jury in the second trial was considering its verdict.
The video was viewed online 250,000 times after being live-streamed on Facebook.
Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting alongside Mr Justice Warby, ruled Robinson had breached the reporting restriction by live-streaming the video and by ‘aggressively confronting and filming’ some of the defendants.
Dame Victoria told Robinson that ‘nothing less than a custodial penalty would properly reflect the gravity of the conduct we have identified’.
She also said he had ‘lied about a number of matters’ and that he had wrongly ‘sought to portray himself as the victim of unfairness and oppression’.