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Alexa Lavoie is heading back to Britain — to cover the rape gang protests and the prosecution of Danny Tommo
Rebel News is sending reporter Alexa Lavoie to the United Kingdom for several days to cover two stories the British establishment media cannot be trusted to report honestly: the growing protests over Britain's rape gangs, and the criminal case against Danny Tommo, the man arrested after confronting a migrant dinghy in the English Channel.
Alexa knows this beat. Earlier this year she reported from Thetford and RAF Barnham, where the government wants to house as many as 1,250 single adult male asylum seekers on a former military site, and from towns across Britain where residents told her their communities are being forced to absorb the consequences of the migrant crisis without being heard. Now she's going back.
What happened to Danny Tommo
On Tuesday, September 22, Danny Tommo was in a speedboat in the English Channel, livestreaming, when he came upon a migrant dinghy that had just crossed from France after 33 hours at sea with about 50 people aboard — shadowed the entire way by the French coastguard. The migrants had already been taken off the boat and transferred to a Border Force cutter. Danny leaned over with a knife and cut the empty dinghy.
The next day, he was arrested. Police first said they were investigating criminal damage and recklessly endangering life — an allegation that can carry life in prison. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Basingstoke police station where he was held.
On Thursday night the Crown Prosecution Service charged him with criminal damage and with failing to hand over his phone PIN to police. On Friday morning he appeared at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court, with Tommy Robinson in the public gallery, and pleaded not guilty. He asked for a Crown Court trial. His next hearing is at Portsmouth Crown Court on Tuesday. He was refused bail.
Think about that. Every one of the 50-odd people on that dinghy will get a taxpayer-funded lawyer, a hotel room and three meals a day. The people smugglers who sold them the boat get lawyers. The French crew that escorted them into British waters isn't being arrested. The one man who tried to stop the boat is the one sitting in a cell.
Danny asked Ezra Levant for help finding a lawyer, the same way Tommy Robinson did last year, when Rebel viewers crowdfunded his defence and the charges were dropped. Rebel News is helping. If you want to help pay for Danny's criminal lawyer, please go to SaveDanny.co.uk. The donation form on this page funds Alexa's reporting trip.
Why we're going
The British press has already made up its mind about Danny Tommo. They call him "far-right." They dig up his past. They will cover his trial the way they've covered every story about the migrant crisis: as a problem of angry white men, not as a problem of a government that can't — or won't — stop the boats.
They did the same thing with the rape gangs. For decades, police, councils and social services looked away from the organized rape of British girls because they were more afraid of being called racist than of failing the children in their care. It took a survivor-led independent inquiry, chaired by Rupert Lowe MP, to put the true scale on the record this summer: more than 250,000 victims across 149 districts. Now ordinary Britons are taking to the streets to demand justice — and the same media that ignored the victims for years is smearing the protesters.
That's why Alexa is going. She'll be at the protests, outside the courthouse and in the communities, letting people speak for themselves and showing you what's actually happening on the ground — without the establishment filter.
This page is the home for our continuing coverage of Britain's migrant crisis. We'll post Alexa's reports here as they come in, and you can find all of our previous UK Migrant Reports below.
Independent international reporting like this is expensive. We pay for Alexa's flights, accommodations, transportation and production ourselves — without a penny of government funding.
If you value on-the-ground journalism from the UK that the British media won't do, please help us cover the cost of this reporting mission.
More Migrant Reports: Ireland | Europe
Help fund Alexa's reporting mission to Britain
Alexa is on her way to the UK to cover the rape gang protests and Danny Tommo's court proceedings. Your contribution covers flights, accommodations, local transportation and production — and keeps our journalists investigating the migrant crisis across Britain and Europe.
Rebel News doesn't receive government funding. We rely on viewers like you.
Looking to help pay for Danny Tommo's lawyer instead? Donate to his legal defence here.
Latest reports from the UK
Watch our investigations into migrant accommodation, illegal Channel crossings, the rape gang protests and the impact of Britain's immigration policies on local communities.
