A Scottish dad is taking legal action against far-right agitator Tommy Robinson after being falsely labelled an "invader" on social media. Quroum Beg, 43, from Glasgow, was confronted by anti-immigration protestors in Richmond Park in the Gorbals area on Sunday, July 12, who wrongly accused him of filming children.
Beg, a fourth-generation Scot, said he was left "fearing for his life" after a video of the confrontation was shared by Robinson – real name Steven Yaxley-Lennon – on X with the caption: "Another invader hanging around a park filming children. Glasgow again too!" Police Scotland later confirmed the claims were "completely inaccurate".
Legal action to 'hold Tommy Robinson to account'
Robinson initially appeared to correct the post and apologise, before retracting the apology and blaming a member of his team. Beg has now confirmed he intends to "hold Tommy Robinson to account" and has launched a Crowd Justice page, stating the legal action is "not about revenge" but to establish "whether a lie should be allowed to travel further and faster than the truth".
In a statement, Beg said: "Tommy Robinson, an account with approximately two million followers on X, shared a video of me with a caption falsely alleging I was filming children with sinister intent, and describing me as an 'invader'. I was in fact filming a protest. The post was viewed over 139,000 times within 48 hours."
Impact on family and fundraising
Beg said that as a direct result he was followed, his car was searched for, and his children watched him get racially abused in the street. Police involvement was required for his safety. He is raising funds to take the case through the courts under Scotland's defamation law, which requires that a statement cause, or be likely to cause, serious harm to reputation to be actionable.
The X post was deleted from Robinson's account, with a new message saying: "I have to correct the record here. In this instance, I got it wrong, as did many others, so for that I apologise, and I have deleted that post." The new post also urged followers to "be a little more careful about how they approach these situations from a factual point of view."
Robinson retracts apology
However, Robinson later retracted the apology, posting a screenshot of his team's WhatsApp group and saying: "I haven't apologised to him because I didn't even share the story, I didn't even know about the story. One of my admins did." He described Beg's actions as "pretty weird", adding: "I'm not sorry at all because I didn't say s***."
Beg added: "Tommy Robinson's accusation about me... went viral before it was ever checked - and I'm not willing to just let that stand, or let him do it again. I was filming a protest. He called me an 'invader' and accused me of filming children. It wasn't true." So far, Beg has raised £33,500 of a £50,000 target, which will go towards legal costs and the legal steps involved in enforcing a judgement if the campaign is successful. Robinson, co-founder of the English Defence League, previously lost a libel case after wrongly accusing a 15-year-old refugee of being a bully.
