UK anti-Muslim activist 'Tommy Robinson' loses challenge to segregation in jail

LONDON (Reuters) - British anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who counts U.S. billionaire Elon Musk among his supporters, was on Friday refused permission to bring a legal challenge over the decision to hold him in segregation in prison.

Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, was jailed for 18 months last October after admitting contempt of court.

The self-styled journalist breached an injunction which prevented him repeating libellous statements about a Syrian refugee he wrongly claimed had attacked a girl at his school.

Yaxley-Lennon has been kept apart from other prisoners at Woodhill Prison in central England for more than 140 days since then because the governor said he was at risk of being attacked.

He says the decision is "politically motivated because of my activism and my beliefs", his lawyer Alisdair Williamson quoted Yaxley-Lennon to London's High Court on Thursday.

Yaxley-Lennon sought to challenge his segregation on the grounds that it was a breach of his right to freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment.

But Judge Martin Chamberlain refused permission, saying in a ruling that the decision to segregate Yaxley-Lennon was "taken for his own protection and in the interests of preserving the safety of other prisoners and staff".

The judge said Yaxely-Lennon is able to spend around three hours per day out of his cell, has work in the prison which gives him additional time out of his cell and can have visits from and phone calls with his friends and family.

Chamberlain said it was therefore "not accurate to refer to Mr Yaxley-Lennon's regime as 'solitary confinement' at all".

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sarah Young)