Sir Mark Rowley speaks out over Graham Linehan arrest

Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said his officers had no choice but to arrest Graham Linehan over his anti-trans tweets.

Officers at Heathrow, who are routinely armed, arrested the Father Ted writer when he arrived on a flight from Arizona on Monday.

The incident sparked a free-speech backlash and made the front page of newspapers including the Daily Mail, which went with the splash headline: ‘When did Britain become North Korea?’

Reacting to the controversy today, Sir Mark said: ‘I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position’

Linehan, 57,  was arrested for allegedly inciting violence in a number of tweets, including one which read: ‘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.’

The writer was also taken to hospital following his arrest with worryingly high blood pressure, which he ascribed to the stress off the incident. 

In a statement, Sir Mark said ‘the officers involved in the arrest had reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed under the Public Order Act’.

He added: ‘While the decision to investigate and ultimately arrest the man was made within existing legislation - which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence - I understand the concern caused by such incidents given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world.

‘Most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers. Such actions can and do have serious and violent real-world implications.

‘But when it comes to lesser cases, where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments who have given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they're reported. Then they are obliged to follow all lines of enquiry and take action as appropriate.

‘I don't believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position.

‘I have offered to provide suggestions to the Home Office on where the law and policy should be clarified. Greater clarity and common sense would enable us to limit the resources we dedicate to tackling online statements to those cases creating real threats in the real world. If agreed, we could be ready to test new approaches quickly, within a matter of weeks.

‘As an immediate way of protecting our officers from the situation we find ourselves in today, we will be putting in place a more stringent triaging process to make sure only the most serious cases are taken forward in future where there is a clear risk of harm or disorder.

‘But officers across the country will have to make similar decisions in future unless the law and guidance is changed or clarified. I hope to see this happen without delay so policing's focus can be squarely on tackling priority issues like street crime and serious violence.’

Describing his arrest in a post on Substack, Linehan wrote: ‘The stress of being arrested for jokes was literally threatening my life. I was escorted to A&E, where I write this now after spending about eight hours under observation.

‘The doctors suggested the high blood pressure was stress-related, combined with long-haul travel and lack of movement. I feel it may also have been a contributing factor that I have now spent eight years being targeted by trans activists working in tandem with police in a dedicated, perseistent [sic] harassment campaign.’

Linehan, who also created The IT Crowd and Black Books, said his only bail condition was not to go on X, which he described as ‘a legal gag order designed to shut me up while I’m [in] the UK’, before appearing for another interview next month.

Describing his arrest,, Linehan said: ‘When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn't help myself. "Don't tell me! You've been sent by trans activists" The officers gave no reaction and this was the theme throughout most of the day. Among the rank-and-file, there was a sort of polite bafflement.’

He added that at Heathrow police station, his belt, bag, and devices were confiscated and he was shown into a cell before being interviewed, when he told officers his tweet ‘was a serious point made with a joke.’ 

When one officer referred to trans people as ‘people who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth’, the writer said: ‘I told him he was using activist language.’

© PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

However he praised police for being ‘consistently decent throughout this farce…. just doing their jobs, however insane those jobs had become.’

‘The civility of individual officers doesn't alter the fundamental reality of what happened. I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online—all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers. 

‘To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.’

Linehan is due in court tomorrow to face charges that he harassed 18-year-old transgender woman Sophia Brooks and caused criminal damage to her phone. He pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing in May. The above picture was taken outside Westminster Magistrates' Court on that day.

Published: 3 Sep 2025