Tommy Robinson Heathrow detention began on Saturday when police stopped Stephen Yaxley-Lennon at Heathrow airport and seized his iPhone and Samsung Galaxy phones under section 3 of the Counter-Terrorism Border Security Act 2019. Robinson, 43, later said on social media that officers held him for almost three hours.
A spokesperson for Robinson posted on X that the stop was “This is an attack on free speech, this is an attack on investigative journalism, nothing more nothing less.” The same account also said, “They likely want to see who he is talking to, and maybe find out who his sources are, sources who will expose politicians for their part in the rape of a generation of British girls.”
Heathrow stop under section 3
Police used port powers in the 2019 act, which allow officers at ports to stop, question, search and detain people suspected of travelling to plan, prepare and carry out hostile acts. The Metropolitan police declined to comment on the stop.
The Heathrow detention came after Robinson had recently risen to prominence amid racial tensions across Britain. Robinson responded to police bodyworn footage showing the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak while in police custody in Southampton, and he spearheaded protests there in which clashes between rioters and police left 13 officers and one police dog injured.
Robinson's online reach
Robinson also amplified footage of a man believed to be a Sudanese asylum seeker wielding a knife in Belfast in a suspected attempted murder on Monday. Robinson posted details of planned demonstrations across Britain and Northern Ireland on X, and Elon Musk shared Robinson's post to his 240 million followers.
Robinson's 2024 encounter with police adds to the immediate friction around the Heathrow stop. In July 2024, officers stopped him at the Channel tunnel in Folkestone while he was driving a friend's silver Bentley to Benidorm in Spain, and he was later cleared of a terror charge after refusing to give police access to his phone. A district judge said then that he could not be sure the police stop was lawful.
Phone seizure after July 2024
Robinson asked supporters to donate money to fund his legal defence after the Heathrow detention. His phones were taken, his spokesperson turned the stop into a free-speech dispute, and the police have left the legal basis for the airport search in the section 3 powers of the 2019 act.
What happens next sits with the legal process around the stop and any defence Robinson chooses to mount over the seizure of his phones and the length of the detention. The most immediate fact for passengers and airport readers is that police used counter-terrorism port powers at Heathrow, then did not expand publicly on the case.
