British Comedy Writer Graham Linehan Arrives at London Court Defiantly Wearing an Anti-Trans Sandwich Board

Comedian and activist Graham Lineham is doubling down on his transgender criticisms, wearing a sandwich board refuting pro-trans rhetoric to a U.K. court just days after armed officials arrested him at Heathrow Airport over comments he posted to social media.The comedy writer, known for creating the British shows “The IT Crowd” and “Father Ted,” is facing charges for allegedly offensive posts on X about a transgender activist, Sophia Brooks. He arrived at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday morning with the poster boards draped over his body. The large signage contained the messages, “There’s no such thing as a ‘Transgender Child,’” and, “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports.” Mr. Linehan flashed a smile for the gaggle of media cameras awaiting his arrival and displayed the messages before entering the courthouse.On Monday, after flying from Arizona where he recently moved, Mr. Linehan was met by Metropolitan Police on his American Airlines flight.“The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two — five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets,” Mr. Linehan wrote in a first-person account of the incident on his Substack newsletter.The comedian claimed his three April posts on X were innocuous, but he was charged with inciting violence.“If a trans-identifed male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act,” one of the posts on his X account reads. “Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the b—s.” In a second post on X at about the same time, Mr. Linehan commented on a photo from a trans rally along with the caption, “A photo you can smell.”He was eventually released, provided he promised not to post on X any further until a subsequent interview with investigators in October.News of his arrest on Monday drew condemnation against the British government for detaining the comic simply for making quips online, including from Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who said through a spokesman that the Metropolitan Police should keep their focus on issues that “matter most to their communities.”“This is an operational matter for the police, but the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been clear about what their priorities on crime and policing are: that’s tackling antisocial behavior, shoplifting and street crime as well as reducing serious violent crime such as knife crime and violence against women,” a spokesman for the premier said in a statement to the Telegraph.A Conservative member of the British parliament, Neil O’Brien, said the incident “would be laughable [if] it wasn’t so serious.”“Britain is now a total laughing stock — a country where we arrest the authors of light comedies and interrogate them about their tweets,” Mr. O’Brien said on X.Earlier this year, Mr. Linehan was arrested and charged with harassment and criminal damage in a series of incidents with Ms. Brooks, allegedly harassing her on social media this past October and then damaging her phone during a confrontation at a conference at London where he was a speaker that same month.The prosecuting attorney, Julia Fure Walker, said in her opening arguments that Mr. Linehan specifically targeted Ms. Brooks in a string of posts on X, calling her a “deeply disturbed sociopath” and a “domestic terrorist.”She said that the posts were “not merely irritating or annoying, but rather oppressive and unacceptable, thereby crossing the threshold into harassment.”Ms. Brooks herself took the stand and recounted the incident with the comedian at the Battle of Ideas conference, claiming that he approached her and called her a “groomer.” A few hours later, she spotted him again and called out to him. Both had gotten into a heated argument that led to Mr. Linehan grabbing Ms. Brooks’s phone and throwing it to the ground.“I was being branded as a deeply disturbed sociopath by a relatively famous person with over 500,000 followers — any of which could see Mr. Linehan’s post and cause great harm to me,” Ms. Brooks said.Mr. Linehan has long denied the accusations against him. While he did not speak in court, his prepared statement made while being interviewed by authorities was read aloud by the prosecutor.“He said, in summary, that he considered that the complainant — whom he referred to as Tarquin throughout the prepared statement — had harassed him by approaching him and filming him at close quarters,” Ms. Faure Walker said.“He said he tried to ignore the complainant, the complainant provoked him and made a provocative statement, put the phone in his face, he grabbed the phone and threw it to the side, it was a reflex response.”“In relation to the online posts, the defendant did not accept it amounted to harassment.”

British Comedy Writer Graham Linehan Arrives at London Court Defiantly Wearing an Anti-Trans Sandwich Board

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