Linehan welcomes court overturning his conviction for criminal damage
Writer criticises prosecution and claims ‘case should never have got to court’
FATHER Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, who was found guilty of damaging the mobile phone of a transgender activist during a dispute outside a conference, has had his conviction overturned.
Mr Linehan, 57, a prominent anti-trans campaigner, was involved in a confrontation with activist Sophia Brooks outside the Battle Of Ideas conference in Westminster, London, on October 19, 2024.
The comedy writer attended the two-day hearing at Southwark Crown Court in person, smiled and turned to supporters sitting in the public gallery when Judge Amanda Tipples ruled his conviction for criminal damage should be overturned.
The judge, who was assisted in the proceedings by two magistrates, said: ‘Having considered all the evidence before us, we cannot be sure that the damage to the complainant’s phone was caused by Mr Linehan on the evening of October 19, 2024.
‘We therefore found Mr Linehan not guilty of the offence.’
Speaking outside Southwark Crown Court yesterday, Mr Linehan accused the police of failing to ‘properly and fairly investigate’ what had happened.
He said: ‘The decision of the court to throw out this case is very welcome – but this case should never have got to court.
‘There has been a troubling pattern of police forces around the country to “believe” transrights activists, time and time again, even when there has been overwhelming evidence that complaints have been made against gender-critical campaigners in bad faith.
‘The police have failed in their duty to properly and fairly investigate – preferring instead to support one side over the other in
‘I am proud I have never given in’
a debate. All this has done is erode the faith the public should be able to have in the police.
‘We are sick of two-tier policing and I hope with today’s verdict it will end,’ he said.
‘I have suffered greatly in my fight to protect women and children from what I believe to be a dangerous ideology. But I am proud that I have never given in and I will not do.
‘I have been lifted through support from friends and strangers, from women’s rights groups to London cabbies who have taken the time to stop and shake my hand.’
The hearing was shown footage filmed on Ms Brooks’ phone in the moments leading up to the criminal damage incident.
While filming outside the venue, the activist, then 17 and a biological male who identifies as female, approached Mr Linehan and asked: ‘Why do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?’
On the footage, Mr Linehan can be heard calling Ms Brooks a ‘sissy porn-watching scumbag,’ a ‘groomer’ and a ‘disgusting incel’, with the complainant responding: ‘You’re the incel, you’re divorced.’
Another video that was played in court appeared to show Mr Linehan grabbing or slapping the complainant’s phone out of their hands.
Mr Linehan’s lawyer Sarah Vine told the judge that the complainant was ‘determined’ to see Mr Linehan convicted as part of a ‘campaign’ against the comedy writer for his anti-transgender activism.
The complainant, Ms Vine said, ‘is seeking to achieve a victory against Mr Linehan because he is a high-profile opponent, by misusing the justice system’.
Ms Brooks told the appeal hearing she approached Mr Linehan and began recording him because she wanted ‘an apology and explanation’ after Mr Linehan called her a ‘domestic terrorist’ on social media.
‘I wanted a response. I wanted to know why he thought it was acceptable to call teenagers a
‘I wanted to shame him, not upset him’
domestic terrorist, and to shame him into an apology,’ Ms Brooks, speaking from the witness box at Southwark Crown Court, said.
Ms Vine told the complainant that her purpose in approaching and filming Mr Linehan was to ‘provoke a reaction’.
Ms Brooks denied, and added: ‘I wanted to shame him, not upset him, and not in the hope of a reaction, in the hope of an apology or an explanation or both.’
Last November, District Judge Briony Clarke also cleared Mr Linehan of harassing Ms Brooks with a series of social media comments that were posted before and after the incident.
She said his posts were ‘deeply unpleasant, insulting and even unnecessary’, but that, however, they did not amount to ‘oppressive’ conduct.
The Bafta-winning writer was accused of harassment for branding Ms Brooks a ‘domestic terrorist’, a ‘groomer’ and an ‘incel’ in a number of posts on social media.