Long-time associate of Tommy Robinson, Danny Tommo, has been arrested in the United Kingdom after he livestreamed himself slashing the inflatable hull of a migrant boat to, he said, prevent it from being re-used.
Hampshire Police said they have arrested a 37-year-old man on suspicion of: “destroying ships or fixed platforms or endangering their safety under Section 11 of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990, criminal damage, criminal damage with intent to endanger life, and conduct endangering ships, structures or individuals under Section 58 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995”. They said the arrest came after “a boat that had an emergency responder on board was damaged in the English Channel.”
Daniel Thomas, better known as Danny Tommo, the founder of the Patriot Platform group which has held a series of anti-mass-migration protests in recent weeks had livestreamed himself intercepting a migrant boat in the English Channel, which had been motoring from the coast of France to Britain since Monday. After the migrant group aboard had been taken off, the video showed a man in his own boat approaching the craft and then puncturing the inflatable hull with a knife.
The Guardian notes the man, identified by that publication as Tommo, said “let’s get rid of that boat”. Approaching the craft he is reported to have said “they’re not using these boats, no more migrants in our country”, and said in the livestreamed video: “there’s no migrants on it now, it’s in English waters… you’re in English territory, this is England, this is not France any more”.
Tommo’s own boat and two other boats, said to belong to French coastguard or emergency services, all reached the smuggler craft at the same time. As Tommo slashed the hull of the craft, a man in high-visibility gear from the French launch also jumped aboard. Advising man to abandon the presumably then-sinking craft, Tommo went on: “right, out get off. Get off the boat… you’ve got time to get off the boat… no more of this!”.
It is stated the French rescue worker then stepped back onto one of his own boats alongside.
The Daily Telegraph reports the British operation to bring the migrants on that boat ashore involved a Border Security Command cutter, the Vigilant, and two RNLI charity volunteer lifeboats, which the organisation has since acknowledged were running ‘dark’, without their transponders turned on. This tactic, to hide the handover of migrants in the English Channel between smugglers and the French and British governments has previously been observed from the French.
Military vessels have a carve-out in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea which allows them to ‘run dark’ when operations require, and smaller craft like lifeboats can argue an exception based on size, but nevertheless to do so goes against long established best practice for craft of any size in a crowded waterway such as the English Channel.
Over 1,200 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel since Monday, and at least two boats are believed to have made it all the way across the English Channel without being interdicted at all.
The Telegraph report states Tommo also livestreamed his own arrest on Wednesday, telling officers he wanted to speak to his children before being taken into custody. Tommy Robinson has since promoted a crowd-funding effort to pay for defence lawyers for the arrested protest leader.
Robinson has also been arrested this week, he said, stating that counter-terrorism police wished to interrogate him about his opinions on the Russian Federation.