The UKIP activist revealed the undercover recordings as part of short documentary he called Panodrama to thousands of supporters outside the BBC’s offices in Manchester.
In the documentary, Robinson reveals how HOPE Not Hate was to help BBC Panorama, the publicly-funded broadcaster’s flagship investigative documentary programme, to produce a “Tommy takedown”.
“This is massive. This is Britain’s leading investigative journalist documentary by the BBC, that we pay for, creating, editing news, in order to destroy my life,” Robinson says.
Robinson presents evidence of Sweeney’s intention to produce fake news for the BBC in which Robinson’s former associates are pressured to convey him in a negative light, and are told what to say on camera.
In Robinson’s documentary, he confronts Sweeney about a clip which shows Sweeney suggesting that a past dispute with an employee could be edited in a misleading way.
“You find it fun to tell someone that an innocent comment is sexualised — do you know what that would do to my family? Do you know what that would do to my children? Do you know what you are doing to my family? You’ve no idea what you’re doing to my family,” he told Sweeney.
“If you had got away with what you were trying to do to me, you’d have ruined me. You’d have [destroyed] my marriage.”
Sweeney also called working-class men “cannibals from Amazonia” in the leaked undercover video released by Robinson.
“We’ve seen the BBC, who pride themselves on being impartial and reporting the truth, you’ve witnessed the main man from Panorama telling someone what to say, brokering a deal on what they have to say about me,” Robinson concludes in his documentary.
“They’re scripting the documentary. They’re also creating and inventing news — ‘sexual thing’ against Tommy Robinson… What else was going to be said? What are lies and manufactured evidence would there have been on this documentary?” he asks.
The BBC has acknowledged that “some of the footage which has been released was recorded without our knowledge during this investigation and John Sweeney made some offensive and inappropriate remarks, for which he apologises”.
“BBC Panorama’s investigation [into Robinson] will continue,” the broadcaster said.