'I'm Coming to Get You': Tommy Robinson's Harassment Trial Opens at Southwark Crown Court

"I'm coming to get you." That is what the prosecution says Tommy Robinson told a journalist down the phone at 6pm on 5 August 2024 — and it is the sentence at the heart of the trial that opened at Southwark Crown Court on Monday. The activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, denies two counts of harassment causing fear of violence. The trial is expected to run five days, and day one did not pull its punches.

Opening for the prosecution, Ben Holt told the jury that Robinson deployed "bullyboy, intimidatory tactics" against two MailOnline reporters, Andrew Young and Jacob Dirnhuber — tactics that, the court heard, left one journalist under close protection and the other forced to move house.

Tommy Robinson trial: the "I'm coming to get you" allegation

The charges relate to Robinson's X account and a phone call between 5 and 7 August 2024. The prosecution's case is that Robinson, furious at a Daily Mail investigation, turned his fury on the two men behind it.

The background matters. The Mail had dispatched Young, an investigative journalist, with a photographer to Cyprus, where Robinson was on holiday — tweeting about the unrest that followed the Southport attack from what the paper's front page on 5 August 2024 called his "sunbed", under the headline "Stoking race riots from his sunbed". Robinson, who has more than two million followers on X, viewed the piece as an intrusion that endangered his family.

What happened next is what the jury must judge. Holt said Robinson rang Young at 6pm on 5 August, recited the journalist's home address back to him, swore and shouted, and told him he would have to move house. "He was going to shove a camera in his face and ask questions," Holt said. Young, the court heard, believes Robinson said: "I'm coming to get you."

Between 4am and 4pm that same day, Robinson allegedly bombarded Dirnhuber with direct messages on X: "You have endangered my children." "I'll be knocking at your door." "Let your bosses know I'm coming to all of your houses." Later: "Okay got your address." "We need to talk." At 10.45pm on 6 August, the prosecution says, Robinson posted three edited photographs on X showing Young's wife, his daughter and his motor vehicle.

Journalists "forced to flee their homes"

The human cost, as the prosecution framed it, went well beyond angry messages. Young was given a close protection officer by the newspaper after the photographs appeared online. Dirnhuber moved house. A third journalist who contributed to the article, George Odling, also felt compelled to leave his family home. Even the Daily Mail's editor-in-chief, Ted Verity, received a voicemail from a caller identifying himself as Tommy Robinson, who allegedly said: "I've already located every f***ing one of you."

"This was never going to be a one-man campaign," Holt told the jury. "It was inevitably going to draw others in, only heightening the worry and concern for those who were at the sharp end of these posts." Supporters got involved, threatening the journalists, he said — and on social media, to millions of followers, Robinson circulated images of their homes.

The defence: "what is good for the goose"

Robinson's case, as sketched in court, is that he acted to protect his family. Holt told jurors the defence will argue Robinson's conduct was reasonable — a proportionate response from a man who believed the Mail had published his family's location knowing "full well that people want to kill me".

"A phrase we will hear a few times in this case," Holt said, quoting the defence position: "'what is good for the goose is good for the gander'."

That framing will be tested hard over the coming days. The legal question is not whether Robinson was angry — anger is not a crime — but whether his conduct crossed into harassment causing fear of violence. The jury will weigh the late-night DMs, the photographs of a colleague's wife and daughter, and that phone call against the defence's claim of reasonable self-protection.

Robinson, 43, who founded the English Defence League, pleaded not guilty in July last year. The trial continues.

Sources

• The Times — Tommy Robinson used 'bully-boy' tactics on journalists, court told
• The Sun — Tommy Robinson used 'bullyboy, intimidatory tactics' to threaten journalists & forced them to leave home, court told
• Radio NewsHub — Tommy Robinson to go on trial over alleged harassment of two journalists (19 Oct 2026)