Graham Linehan, the co-creator of Father Ted, has been paid £25,000 in compensation by the Metropolitan police and received an apology after his arrest over gender-critical social media posts. The 57-year-old was detained by armed officers at Heathrow airport last September following a 10-hour flight from Arizona. He was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to three posts on X and held at a nearby police station for 12 hours.
Police apology and policy change
A Met spokesperson said on Thursday: “We recognise the considerable distress caused to Mr Linehan, and have offered our sincere apologies. This case prompted a significant change, which means the Met no longer investigates non-crime hate incidents. We believe this will provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.”
In a letter to Linehan, the force accepted there had been “shortcomings in the investigation, the arrest and the imposition of bail conditions”, according to the Times. A settlement was reached after a civil claim. The main concerns with the investigation were over the systems and guidelines in place at the time, the Guardian understands.
Posts that led to arrest
The first post by Linehan, on 19 April, included a picture of a trans rally and was captioned: “A photo you can smell.” He followed that with a tweet saying: “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.” The third, on 20 April, said: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and, if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” Linehan insisted at the time that while he may have been guilty of making a “bad joke”, he had not been aiming to encourage violence.
Political backlash and dropped investigation
The arrest provoked a political backlash, with Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, criticising the force’s actions as “thought-policing”, adding: “Sending five officers to arrest a man for a tweet isn’t policing, it’s politics.” The writer announced in October that the investigation into his social media messages had been dropped, having been placed under bail conditions that banned him from posting on X.
This week, Linehan reposted a link to the story about the apology with the message: “Thank you for everything” to the campaigning group the Free Speech Union.
Previous legal case
Last November, Linehan was cleared of harassing a transgender activist on social media but found guilty of criminal damage of their mobile phone outside a conference in London. He had denied harassing Sophia Brooks on social media between 11 and 27 October 2024, and a charge of criminal damage of their mobile phone on 19 October outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster. Judge Clarke fined Linehan £500 and ordered him to pay costs of £650 and a statutory surcharge of £200. The judge found that the writer had taken Brooks’s phone because he was “angry and fed up” and had damaged it by knocking it to the ground. The conviction for damaging their mobile phone was also overturned on appeal.
