Tommy Robinson’s ‘behaviour modified after we made him well-known once more’

Tommy Robinson‘s ‘behaviour changed after the fame and money started rolling in’, his former assistant has said.

Lucy Brown said the ex-English Defence Leader (EDL) became ‘very nasty and misogynistic’ after his profile began to elevate, bringing with it donations and a public profile.

Ms Brown, 33, said she quit in 2018 and has since endured ‘six years of Tommy Robinson fans stalking, harassing, death threats’.

She told TimesRadio: ‘We kind of made him famous again. He wasn’t very famous when we first met him, we kind of reignited that and it wasn’t pleasant.

‘But then as time went on and as the fame and the money started rolling in again, his behaviour changed.

‘He thought he was better than us, he thought he didn’t need us. He would have yes-men around him.

‘The attitude became very nasty and misogynistic.’

Ms Brown said she is in a happy relationship with Sascha Bailey, son of photographer David Bailey, and wants to warn against the ‘new counter-culture’ of hating women which she fears is becoming increasingly mainstream.

And she blamed Robinson and his band of ‘yes-men’ for stoking the fires of discontent that led to widespread rioting across the UK in the last week.

She said: ‘The scenes that we are seeing are the very thing we are trying to stop – by creating independent journalism, by giving people voices, by raising awareness of issues we thought the media maybe weren’t addressing enough.

‘I would say that Tommy’s ego has led to it just devolving. His team – they are all fanning the flames of this.

‘I just consider this a great shame, it makes me weep seeing the images we saw over the weekend, it makes me sick. And it was preventable in many ways.

‘It’s very disgusting and shocking to see’.

Ms Brown said Robinson’s team used to compare him to Imhotep, the immortal antagonist from The Mummy films, and said they joked ‘we needed to put him back where he came from’.

Privately educated Ms Brown joined Robinson’s team as a video journalist in 2017, filming for right-wing vlog channel Rebel Media – a decision which left her family and friends ‘bewildered’ by the move.

She previously told MailOnline she took the job because she was keen to ‘hit the road’ and engage with the public to have meaningful conversations.

But the professional relationship soured by the following year, during a ‘Day for Freedom’ protest in Whitehall, which organisers said was to ‘defend free speech’.

The high-profile event saw clashes between protesters and police, leading to five injured officers, as some of the 15,000 people who attended threw bottles, metal barriers and other objects.

This was only a few weeks before ‘citizen journalist’ Robinson filmed a video outside a trial in Leeds – which resulted in him being jailed for contempt of court.

But turbulence also occurred behind the scenes at the event, and a falling out resulted in Ms Brown being sacked by Robinson.

Hundreds of people sent her death threats and told her she would ‘benefit from an acid facial’ on social media.

Her phone number was even posted on the Democratic Football Lads Alliance Facebook page – which included around 12,000 people at the time.

She told MailOnline: ‘The falling out with Tommy came about because I put myself between a Muslim man and someone who was trying to beat him up at the event.

‘I don’t care if I don’t agree with him, I’m not going to let him get beaten up. To Tommy and everyone, that was me ‘showing my true colours’.

‘It’s just become worse and worse over the years. I might have made some stupid choices but I was vulnerable. And my friends thought I was racist and went away.

‘I was on my own making bad decision after bad decision. It was definitely like a cult. I was thinking in the collective.’

MailOnline this week revealed Robinson has been stoking far-right race riots across Britain from the safety of a sun lounger at a five-star hotel in Cyprus.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted a constant stream of inflammatory social media posts from his foreign bolthole while on holiday with family and friends.

Robinson, 41, who had a UK arrest warrant issued against him on Monday last week after he skipped a court appearance, had tried to keep his holiday location a secret.

He failed to mention his location in a series of video rants posted to his 800,000 followers on social media – all while his supporters rioted.

And he was dealt a further blow when his tax advisor confirmed she no longer wished to work for him.

Jesminara Rahman, a British Muslim who specialises in tax disputes, said she no longer wanted his money as he was ‘destroying’ the country over his alleged role in whipping up race-hate.

Ms Rahman, a former HMRC Tax Inspector, told MailOnline that she was advising Robinson in relation to a tax matter concerning his ex-wife, Jenna Lennon.

She said: ‘I don’t want to work with him anymore. His deposit has been returned.’