STORY
Far Right Activist Condemned Over Dangerous Channel Knife Incident
Police are making inquiries after footage livestreamed by far right activist Daniel Thomas appeared to show him repeatedly stabbing and slashing an inflatable dinghy in the English Channel while a rescue worker was standing inside it. Thomas, who uses the name Danny Tommo, had followed boats carrying asylum seekers and filmed the incident after their occupants had been transferred to rescue vessels.
The footage reportedly shows Thomas warning the rescue worker to leave only after he had begun damaging the dinghy, before Thomas and his companions moved away. The livestream did not show what subsequently happened to the worker. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants condemned Thomas’s actions as violent and dangerous.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said inquiries into the incident were continuing. Six people were arrested during the wider protest operation for alleged offences including assaulting an emergency worker and aggravated trespass, although the report did not identify Thomas as one of those detained. The rescued asylum seekers were later transferred to a Border Force vessel following an exceptionally long and hazardous Channel crossing.