The far-right agitator Daniel Thomas has admitted criminal damage after slashing a dinghy with a knife in the Channel.
The 37-year-old, who is also known as Danny Tommo, changed his plea to the single charge when he appeared via video link from prison at Portsmouth crown court on Thursday.
A court previously heard Thomas – said to be a close associate of the far-right extremist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson – had taken a boat into the Channel and observed the occupants of a dinghy being assisted by the RNLI, Border Force and the French coastguard.
Kevin Lucie, prosecuting, told Basingstoke magistrates court in September that the defendant instructed his boat be steered towards the empty vessel that was adrift and then armed himself with a knife as rescue crews also approached the dinghy and a Frenchman boarded from a rescue vessel.
After slashing the boat with the knife, Thomas could be heard saying: “This is what needs to happen to everyone in these boats. Right, you’re on English territory. This is England, this is not France any more.
“Get off the boat, you have time to get off the boat. This is not France. Take them back.”
At the hearing on Thursday, Thomas, whose address was withheld by the court at a previous hearing, reiterated his plea of not guilty to failing to disclose the pin to his phone to police, under section 53 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
After footage of the incident in September emerged, Thomas’s actions were condemned as violent and dangerous by refugee charities the Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants and Stand Up to Racism.
According to the RNLI, the rescued asylum seekers had been in the water for 36 hours, which is thought to be the longest time small boat passengers had spent crossing the Channel.
RNLI said there were concerns for their deteriorating health and fears of a “catastrophic failure” of their dinghy. The French coastguard said about 60 people on a small boat had spent more than 33 hours at sea “in precarious conditions”, refusing help as they were “determined to take all risks to reach the United Kingdom”.
Thomas gathered dozens of nationalist protest groups over the summer under the umbrella movement Patriot Platform.
Earlier in September, hundreds of masked and hooded anti-migrant activists aligned to Patriot Platform descended on Dover and Portsmouth. Hampshire police said later that a number of police, coastguard and Border Force vehicles had been damaged, and a few officers had suffered minor injuries.
Judge James Newton-Price KC set sentencing for 18 November. Thomas remains in custody ahead of the hearing.
