{"id":2176345,"date":"2025-11-25T10:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T10:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2176345"},"modified":"2025-11-25T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T10:56:14","slug":"father-ted-writer-graham-linehan-cleared-of-harassing-transgender-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/father-ted-writer-graham-linehan-cleared-of-harassing-transgender-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Ted writer Graham Linehan cleared of harassing transgender activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Graham Linehan arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Margaret Davis and Ellie Crabbe<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been cleared of harassing a transgender activist on social media but found guilty of criminal damage of their mobile phone outside a conference in London last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 57-year-old flew in from Arizona to appear at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court in person on Tuesday where judgment was delivered by District Judge Briony Clarke.<\/p>\n

Linehan denied harassing Sonia Brooks on social media between October 11 and October 27 last year, and a charge of criminal damage of their mobile phone on October 19 last year outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster.<\/p>\n

The trial heard that Brooks had begun taking photographs of delegates at the event during a speech by Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters.<\/p>\n

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Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan denied the charges (Ben Whitley\/PA)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Outside the event, the activist asked Linehan: \u201cWhy do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, the court heard that Linehan had called Brooks a \u201csissy porn-watching scumbag\u201d, a \u201cgroomer\u201d and a \u201cdisgusting incel\u201d, with the complainant responding: \u201cYou\u2019re the incel, you\u2019re divorced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker told the court that Linehan had written \u201crepeated, abusive, unreasonable\u201d social media posts about Brooks, who he referred to as Tarquin.<\/p>\n

The comedy writer, who has well-publicised strong views on gender issues, said his \u201clife was made hell\u201d by trans activists, adding that the complainant was a \u201cyoung soldier in the trans activist army\u201d.<\/p>\n

The writer added: \u201cHe was misogynistic, he was abusive, he was snide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.independent.ie \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

latest\u00a0|\u00a0 Graham Linehan arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court Margaret Davis and Ellie Crabbe Press Association Today at 11:48 Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been cleared of harassing a transgender activist on social media but found guilty of criminal damage of their mobile phone outside a conference in London last year. The 57-year-old flew in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2176346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[347605],"class_list":["post-2176345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-latest-news-ticker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Father-Ted-writer-Graham-Linehan-cleared-of-harassing-transgender-activist.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2176347,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176345\/revisions\/2176347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}