Tommy Robinson heads home after ‘covertly’ recording Irish ‘girls’ for documentary

Despite leaving the State a day after a planned counter-demonstration to last weekend’s anti-racism march in Dublin fell apart, one of Robinson’s associates claimed they weren’t leaving empty handed.

“We’re leaving with an incredible amount of information, footage and evidence,” he boasted.

Earlier, English Defence League founder Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon - detailed how some of this evidence consists of covertly videoed conversations he’d had with ‘girls’ he’d approached in towns using a hidden camera.

“I’ve gone today round the towns in Ireland,” he said.

“And I’ll apologise in the documentary for having to do this but people need to know what’s going on so I’ve wore a hidden camera and approached girls in towns.

“And I said: ‘how you feeling? Tell me what’s going on in Ireland? I’ve seen a lot of protests and I’m here from England. I’m just trying to work out what’s going on.’

“And they say: ‘Well, we can’t walk the streets. We’re really scared. We’re getting attacked …’

“I mean, like, literally 100pc of the girls I spoke to … every girl I spoke to and I’ve got them all on covert recordings … all openly telling us what’s happening.”

Robinson’s tactic of covertly recording women he’d approached without identifying himself was one of a number of controversies to develop during his brief visit to Ireland.

On the night of his arrival he posed for pictures, arm in arm, with notorious Ballyfermot heroin dealer Anthony ‘Harpo’ O’Driscoll.

And on Saturday last, his presence was directly linked to the collapse of a planned counter protest to the ‘Ireland4All’ march.

A group calling itself ‘the Dublin Protest Committee’ said it would not involve itself in a planned counter-protest– as it believed the organisers were past and present members of anti-Islamic group set up in Ireland by Robinson.

The group also said it felt Robinson ‘had a hand in organising this counter protest’ and that it was ‘not an Irish-led protest for Irish reasons.’

Sources have since told the Sunday World they believe the support shown for Robinson by a number of high profile Irish anti-immigration activists has turned people off attending protests – at which attendance figures were well down this week.

Robinson – who has been convicted in the UK of fraud, stalking, assault and using someone else’s passport - previously wore a badge supporting an ex-British soldier facing prosecution for two murders on Bloody Sunday.

“It was a wake-up call for a lot of people who were drifting into these protests,” a source said.

“Tommy Robinson is not someone most Irish people would want anything to do with.”

At one protest that did go ahead this week, anti-immigration protestors targeted Dublin GAA legend Philly McMahon over his uncompromising stance against racism.

The eight time All-Ireland winning footballer attended the march in the capital last Saturday and has repeatedly spoken out against misinformation and the targeting of asylum seekers and refugees.

In a video of the protest, a group of about 30 anti-immigration protestors can be heard chanting “Philly out, Philly out”, echoing previous anti-immigrant demonstrators’ chants of “Get them out, get them out”.

Contacted by the Sunday World, Philly said he hadn’t seen the video and didn’t wish to comment at that time.