Father Ted and trans rights critic Graham Linehan pleads not guilty to harassing and smashing phone belonging to a transgender woman

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has pleaded not guilty to harassing a transgender woman and damaging her phone.
The Irish comedy writer, 56, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court today to deny the charges of harassing Sophia Brooks on social media and damaging her mobile in October.
The Bafta-winning writer, who also came up with TV sitcoms The IT Crowd and Black Books, has become a vocal critic of the trans rights movement in recent years.
Linehan, who created Father Ted in the 1990s with fellow Irish writer Arthur Mathews, said in a post on X in April that the allegations were related to an incident at the Battle of Ideas conference in London on October 19.
Court documents show Linehan is charged with harassing the alleged victim by posting abusive comments about her on social media between October 11 and October 27, and damaging her phone to the value of £369 on the day of the conference.
The 56-year-old, who once dubbed himself 'the most hated man on the internet', told how jobs 'fell away' when he became embroiled in the transgender debate.
He was banned in 2020 from Twitter after writing 'Men aren't women tho' before later being reinstated by X founder Elon Musk.
A long-awaited Father Ted musical was then axed in 2022 because of the 56-year-old's controversial political opinions.
When two venues cancelled his 2023 Edinburgh Fringe shows, the now-divorced Linehan opted to perform his set outside the Scottish Parliament.
The 56-year-old sat in seats in front of the dock wearing glasses, a white shirt, grey suit jacket and grey jeans, and spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth and to deny the charges.
Some supporters of the defendant were turned away from the court because of a shortage of seats.
Deputy District Judge Louise Balmain told Linehan his trial would take place on September 4 this year at the same court.
He was freed on bail with the condition not to contact the complainant directly or indirectly.
It comes as Linehan last month praised the Supreme Court's decision to confirm that the word woman is based on biological sex, meaning trans women are legally not women.
Linehan said trans women should be excluded from women's spaces as they were not women - a view that has now been backed up by the Supreme Court.
But although he hailed the Supreme Court decision, he said the war on woke has only just begun.
Speaking to MailOnline, Linehan described the moment he realised the judge had ruled in favour of biology - and revealed his hopes for his own comedy comeback.
He said: 'I was in the courtroom. The judge said we had to respect the court and not have any reaction.
'When we heard it, you could feel the crackle go around the room.
'The moment the judge left, it just sunk in that we won after 10 years of fighting this nonsense. It's good news but this is only one issue in a lot of woke issues.
'The big problem we have is with TV commissioners. The artists are still out there but they have to get past these people who don't really care about art. They care about imposing their beliefs on people.
'If you look back at the 90s with Britpop, British art was famous round all over the world and there was a real sense of excitement.
'But over the last 10 years there's been a dearth of notable stuff. Because these people have tied their hands and feet together.
'It's all very safe - almost trying not to get noticed.
'If you can't say that reality is real, then you can't do jokes about reality.
'That's what all artists do. If you deny the truth of the exterior world, they can't do that.
'But I don't think we will forever be able to stop funny people being funny. People will get sick of it.
'There's going to be a fightback [against wokeness]. Young people are sick of the rules. I think it will naturally fade away and we will come back to freedom of speech.'