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Telegraph
June 19, 2014
When Tommy Robinson, former leader of the English Defence League, arrived at Woodhill prison in January 2014 after being sentenced to 18 months in prison for mortgage fraud, he was told he’d be lucky to make it out alive.
I have been writing to Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon – while he’s been in prison to find out what’s happened to him, and what he plans to do next.
Woodhill is a maximum security prison. Around 15 per cent of inmates are Muslim (which mirrors national averages – Muslims, who make up 3 per cent of the total population, are overrepresented in British prisons). It also holds what are known as “category A” prisoners – the most serious offenders. This, according to Robinson, includes a number of Islamist extremists, such as those convicted last year of trying to detonate a bomb at an EDL march (data protection law means I’m unable to verify this). Why Robinson – whose crime makes him a category C prisoner – was sent there is not clear. However, it is not unusual for prisoners to be placed in category A prisons if the local prison is full at the time of sentencing. It was not a happy experience.
Robinson claims that Woodhill is a hotbed of Islamic radicalisation. “I had staff telling me that the guards don’t run the prison, Islam does.” Radical preachers, he says, are paid £100 for every prisoner they convert. (Although he did not elaborate by whom, why, or how.) These preachers are “enforcing sharia on the wings, preventing non-Muslims from taking showers [with Muslims]”. Robinson further claims that a lot of people are converting to Islam inside the prison in order to become part of a Muslim gang, which gives them some protection. “If you convert,” he says, “you are automatically protected.”
Allegations like this are extremely difficult to prove one way or another. People convert to religions – especially in prison – for all kinds of reasons. However, in 2012 inmates at HMP Whitemoor – the prison with the largest Muslim population in the UK – told Ministry of Justice researchers that they changed their faith for protection or because they were bullied into it; and prison guards said they had a policy of “appeasement” towards the powerful and growing Islamic population, particularly convicted terrorists who were feared to be recruiting future extremists.
Perhaps predictably, given who he is, Robinson tells me that everywhere he went he was threatened with violence from the prison’s Muslims. At one point, he says, he was put into a waiting room with some Muslim prisoners and the door was shut. “Almost immediately, I was attacked, beaten and kicked.” Robinson fought back, he says, and ended up getting into trouble for fighting. Robinson even alleges this was a set-up by the authorities. “It was clear they were given a chance to get at me.” A prison service spokesperson I contacted confirmed that a prisoner was treated for “minor injuries” following an incident with one [rather than several, as Tommy alleges] other inmate on the day in question.
However, a spokesperson from Woodhill Prison strongly denied the other claims made by Robinson, saying “there is absolutely no evidence” for the allegations of Muslims running the prison, or people being paid to convert, and that it is “totally untrue”to say prison staff allowed a prisoner to be targeted. Earlier this year HMP Woodhill was unexpectedly inspected. Overall, Woodhill was found to be a respectful prison, but while the inspection reported tthat he prison had recently made some good changes to ensure prisoner wellbeing, too many prisoners said that they felt victimised – including the Muslim prisoners.
