Fake photo claims to show “Free Tommy” protesters in London – Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

An image showing a large crowd is circulating the Internet along with the caption that is shows the “whole of London” calling for Tommy Robinson to be released.

The image, below, shows thousands of people in a street. It was originally shared under this context on Twitter after Tommy Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – a political far-right activist, was arrested for contempt of court.

The image has been shared on social media tens of thousands of times. However it doesn’t show a protest related to Tommy Robinson, nor does it show London.

In reality, the photo dates back to 2005, 13 years before Robinson was arrested, and is an overhead shot of the Liverpool parade after they had won the Champions League final in that year. The bus is even visible in the bottom left of the photo. The photo was taken in Liverpool’s city centre.


Sponsored Content. Continued below...




It is true that following the arrest of Tommy Robinson – who was arrested for contempt of court for reporting on details related to an on-going criminal trial despite a court order restraining people from doing so for risk of collapsing the case – many violent protests did break out in London’s city centre. However such protests involved hundreds of protestors – not tens of thousands as in the above picture.

During those protests, property was damaged, police were attacked and injured and 5 people were arrested.

As such, we don’t recommend spreading this photo under a fake context. It has nothing to do with the arrest of Tommy Robinson and the subsequent protests.

Keep up-to-date with all our latest articles. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Continued below...


Thanks for reading! But before you go… as part of our latest series of articles on how to earn a little extra cash using the Internet (without getting scammed) we have been looking into how you can earn gift vouchers (like Amazon vouchers) using reward-per-action websites such as SwagBucks. If you are interested we even have our own sign-up code to get you started. Want to learn more? We discuss it here. (Or you can just sign-up here and use code Nonsense70SB when registering.)

Become a Facebook Supporter. For 0.99p (~$1.30) a month you can become a Facebook fan, meaning you get an optional Supporter Badge when you comment on our Facebook posts, as well as discounts on our merchandise. You can subscribe here (cancel anytime.)