'It's a mystery to me' The hunt for Tommy Robinson as he is 'spotted' in Tenerife

As far as I am aware, he is on mainland Spain," insisted Barry Armstrong, convicted fraudster and longtime friend and benefactor of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is better known as Tommy Robinson.

- Daniel Boffey

It was difficult to fit with what the staff at Robinson's favourite breakfast place in Costa Adeje, in southern Tenerife, had said just that morning. "He was in here yesterday," one of the waiters said of Robinson.

Neither did it quite tally with Armstrong's own Facebook postings. "Have you seen your mate we aren't supposed to talk about on Facebook?" a friend asked of Armstrong. The response had been a thumbs up emoji from the retired businessman from Newcastle.

But Armstrong, speaking by his Bentley car outside his villa, wearing only his underpants, said he had nothing to hide.

"I did not know he is here," Armstrong said. "Nobody's told me that. The girl I spoke to, she said, 'No, he's in mainland Spain'. Maybe, when he comes out here, he might see me once, maybe twice, no more than twice."

Tenerife is Tommy Robinson's safe place, said Nick Lowles, biographer of the far-right activist.