Whilst I, like thousands upon thousands of other people, are rejoicing that the human rights campaigner Tommy Robinson has been released on bail from prison, I feel I have to comment on the appalling state that Mr Robinson appeared to be in when he was released. I’ve seen Mr Robinson in the flesh so to speak, close enough to be able to judge his build. I hope that Mr Robinson will not mind me saying this, but he’s short, but despite being shorter in height than the average person, he struck me as a man of solid but average build.
The image that I have had of Mr Robinson, when I’ve seen him at demonstrations or on video, clashed sharply with the image that I saw of Mr Robinson on his release. What I saw was a man who had the gaunt look of a man who had been half-starved. It was a look that reminded me of some of the faces that stared out at me in the illustrations of books and websites that document life in the Displaced Persons camps that were set up following World War II. Some of the pictures of these DP camp residents do not show the walking skeletons which were the survivors that we saw being liberated from Nazi death camps or Japanese prisoner of war camps, but their faces and bodies definitely show the effects of a dietary regime that was considerably below the recommended level for an adult man of 2500 calories per day.
Tommy’s face showed the beginning of the effects of malnutrition, his eyes were set back into his face and his jowls were starting to look concave. I’m not a medical man but to my layperson’s eye, he looks like he’s been living on 1500 calories a day or maybe less. Some explanation for Mr Robinson’s rapid loss of weight came from his brief interview with Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant after Mr Robinson’s release. After the HM Prison Service decided to move Mr Robinson from the relative safety of Hull Prison to Olney Prison, an establishment with, it is alleged, considerably more Muslim inmates than Hull, Mr Robinson, probably correctly, feared that the Muslims would do him harm in some way.
One of the ways that Mr Robinson feared he would be harmed was via the prison food, prepared by inmate labour, probably Muslim labour, in the prison’s kitchens. Because Mr Robinson was being held in solitary confinement for his own safety, he could not queue up with other prisoners and see his food being dished out from the same pot that was being used to serve other inmates. This meant that Mr Robinson had no idea who had prepared, or even if they had tampered with his food before it was given to him in his cell. Quite reasonably, he could not eat the food that the prison service was serving up to him, for fear that it may have been poisoned. In order to survive, he had to use his prison allowance of just £12 per week to purchase food that he could be sure was not tampered with. According to Mr Robinson, he was eating a tin of tuna and some fruit every day and that was about it. My own researches have shown me that even a large 250g / 8oz tin of tuna is only 285 calories and a generous helping of apples, ten fruits at 52 calories each gives a total estimated calorie intake for Mr Robinson in prison of less than 1000 calories per day. You would be prosecuted by the RSPCA if you fed a dog on such an insufficient diet, yet the prison service seemed quite happy with letting Mr Robinson live on such a paltry level of nutrition. Mr Robinson said that he has lost 40lb / 17kg whilst being incarcerated since late May 2018 and his description of his diet and the reasons for it, give some explanation as to Mr Robinson’s gaunt appearance.
Mr Robinson was subjected to behaviour by other inmates, presumably Muslim inmates, including what could reasonably be described as mental torture, with faeces and spit being thrown in his cell window. This meant that even at the height of the recent heatwave, Mr Robinson was forced to keep his cell window closed.
If what has happened to Tommy Robinson in gaol had happened to a child molester, a bank robber, an Islamic terrorist or some other criminal, then I have little doubt that the voluble do-gooders of the Howard League for Penal Reform and of Amnesty International or any other similar group would have been up in arms. As it is, they have said and are likely to continue to say nothing about the appalling treatment of Mr Robinson. Groups that are characterised by their concern for prisoners in British gaols are likely to stay silent on what is beginning to look to me like the sort of brutalising behaviour that was used to try to demoralise those who were imprisoned as part of their fight for women’s suffrage.
Although I’m not disposed to conspiracy theorising and treat such people as the credulous cranks that they so often appear to be, I do have to say that in the way that Tommy Robinson has been treated whilst incarcerated and his gaunt half-starved appearance on exiting prison, really does look as if the British government was trying to break him both physically and psychologically. We have solid evidence here that Mr Robinson has been maltreated whilst imprisoned and this is not something that should be left to slide. What has happened to Mr Robinson could happen to any other dissident in the United Kingdom today. This sort of treatment could be dished out to any one of us, should we be arrested or imprisoned for some sort of ‘thought crime’. Someone in the Ministry of Justice took the decision to move Mr Robinson from the relative safety of Hull Prison to Olney. The reasons for that decision, who made it and why, appears inexplicable for a department that has a responsibility for keeping prisoners safe from harm, and needs to be examined in greater detail.
I believe that there is certainly a case for putting pressure on the Justice Minister, David Gauke in order to get him to explain some of the issues pertaining to how Mr Robinson was treated whilst in custody. The Prisons Service is under Mr Gauke’s responsibility, some of their actions with respect to Mr Robinson must be both explained and, if possible, condemned by him. If, as the Russian novelist and Tsarist political prisoner Fyodor Dostoevsky said, the level of civilisation of a society is measured by how that society treats its prisoners, then surely the way that Mr Robinson has been treated shows that Britain is not just uncivilised but is rapidly descending into the barbarous levels one would expect to see in a banana republic.
You didn’t mention the detail I’ve read elsewhere that he was put at risk of assault by his cell being “accidentally” left unlocked no fewer than three times.
I should have done that thanks for mentioning it. I know from accounts I’ve read of ex prisoners that some cells in some prisoners can be locked from the inside but opened from outside with a key but it was not clear from the accounts given of Tommy’s time inside whether this was the case here. If it was not the case that Tommy was in a cell which he could secure from the inside himself then the actions of the prison wardens would have put Tommy’s safety at risk. As an aside, the release of Tommy really has disturbed the Left no end. I like to keep a weather eye on what the far left are up to, for reasons of wanting to know what my opponents are thinking and also to not become politically siloised too much. For example if you look at places like the urban75 British politics boards you find not just a great anger at Tommy’s release, an uptick in the mockery and dismissal as ‘far right’ and ‘fash’ in the descriptions of Tommy’s supporters but also attempts to try to smear Tommy by saying that the arrest was all an eleborate scam to screw money out of the gullible rightists. The release of Tommy has really pissed off the Left no end judging by the shrillness with which they are counterattacking and it is not being helped by very public climbdowns by the likes of The Secret Barrister.