Father Ted writer gives evidence in his harassment trial

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan told police he threw a teenage trans activist's phone into the road because she taunted him over his divorce.

Linehan, 57, gave evidence in the second day of his trial a Westminster magistrates' court today, where he is charged with harassing Sophia Brooks by posting abusive comments about her on social media between October 11 and October 27 2024.

The comedy writer is also accused of causing £369 worth of damage to Ms Brooks’ iPhone at the annual Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster on October 19 last year.

He told police the teenager had taunted him over the ‘very sensitive subject’ of his separation, Westminster magistrates court heard this morning 

Linehan repeatedly posted on X calling Ms Brooks, now 18, ‘sociopathic’ and a ‘domestic terrorist’.

He said she had been responsible for releasing insects at an event held by the LGB Alliance, but there is no evidence she was involved.

When the pair met at the Battle of Ideas conference, Ms Brooks filmed Linehan and he called her a ‘groomer’ before grabbing her phone and throwing it onto the road.

Linehan was arrested over separate matters when he landed at Heathrow Airport on Monday on suspicion of inciting violence over three X posts about transgender people. He was flying from Arizona to the UK to attend this trial.

Linehan denies harassment without violence and criminal damage to property.

He attended court for the second day of the trial wearing glasses, a grey jacket, white shirt and navy trousers, report journalists from Court News UK.

Yesterday the public gallery was full of protestors on both sides of the debate but today most of the attendees were supporters of Linehan. Ms Brooks and two supporters had to sit among them at the front of the public gallery.

Attendees were warned they would be removed if they laughed in response to evidence as happened yesterday.

Acting Detective Sergeant Thomas Wells told the court he interviewed Linehan on  February 5 Linehan was never arrested for these offences and the interview was by prior appointment.

The officer said Linehan provided a prepared statement where he said he did not mean to cause any damage to the phone and he did not know if any had been caused.

Linehan referred to Ms Brooks by the name ‘Tarquin’ in the statement to police, a name he had made up because he believed she was posh, the court heard. And he referred to her as 'him' throughout.

In the prepared statement, Linehan said: ‘I was first approached by Tarquin when I arrived at the venue and was subject to a form of harassment with Tarquin approaching and filming me at close quarters.

‘Tarquin sought to disrupt the event - despite him being removed by security staff he was still able to harass people around the venue.

‘There was repeated harassment of people including me, typically involving placing a phone in front of someone’s face only a few inches away to provoke a reaction.

‘People try and block the phone and Tarquin treats that as a game, moving the phone up and down. He has no respect for privacy or personal space.

‘I had to try to ignore Tarquin as much as possible but when he confronted me again at the end of the conference Tarquin, frustrated at not having been able to get some form of reaction from me, Tarquin then made a provocative statement about my current family position.

‘I am divorced and this was a very sensitive subject for me as he well knows.

‘The taunting was completely unnecessary as was the filming and in response I grabbed the phone and threw it to one side.

‘I am sure that is precisely the kind of response he had wanted so he could complain about me.

'However, I had had enough of the continued harassment and needed to stop him taunting me any further. It was a reflex response to provocative actions from Tarquin.

‘I have been informed his actions are sufficient for me to complain to the police about harassment from Tarquin however I have no wish to do that and simply wish for harassment from Tarquin to stop.’

Linehan had called Ms Brooks an incel and she replied ‘your the incel, you’re divorced,’ the court has heard.

He denied harassment online and said he believed exposing a ‘vindictive’ trans activist was in the public interest, describing himself as a journalist.

Acting DS Wells confirmed that Linehan has no previous convictions or cautions

Linehan, who once dubbed himself ‘the most hated man on the internet’, has previously told how jobs ‘fell away’ when he started posting about transgender issues.

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 his controversial opinions.

Linehan, of Southwark, London and Scottsdale, Arizona, denies harassment without violence and criminal damage.

Giving evidence, Linehan said he lived in Norwich before his marriage broke down and he moved to London before moving to Arizona six months ago.

Defence barrister Sarah Vine KC asked when he first became aware of trans issues.

He replied: ‘I’m not 100 per cent sure - I think I just started noticing that trans activists were doing things like stopping meetings, attacking women or trying to destroy women’s livelihoods.

‘I’ve always had a thing about bulling, I hate bullies and bullies who bully women are the worst of all.

‘I realised a lot of women couldn’t risk fighting it in an overt way - I thought I had a moral duty to do it because no one else was reporting on it - the BBC continuously lies about the issue.’

Linehan said his life was ‘made hell’ after he posted a link to an article on competing rights between transgender people and biological women.

‘From that moment on my life was made hell by activists, by journalists, my Wikipedia page defaced.

‘This continued relentlessly until now - this is just the latest attempt to punish me by process.

‘The nature of trans activism is it is very male, it’s abusive, it’s sadistic and when you have an ideology that allows people to be a self-identified group of what is supposed to be the most vulnerable and wonderful human beings in the world, anyone can select themselves into this group and some of the most predatory, dangerous men are doing that and police are doing their bidding.’

Linehan said he is not transphobic, adding: ‘I don’t believe in the word trans people, it used to mean transexual, now it’s anyone who calls themselves trans.’

He said the first time he was spoken to by police ’The Guardian leaped on that to call me anti-trans, to say I’d been harassing a trans woman.

‘I didn’t realise as it was happening how significant to my life it would be but The Guardian used it to destroy my reputation and the police just seemed to believe their word.

‘I thought once I pointed out the dangers to women and children I thought everyone would immediately flock to my side, I was isolated and while isolated the press and various other captured institutions were able to beat me up in the dark and that’s been happening for eight years and that was the reason I decided to leave the UK.

‘When I refused to stop talking about it that’s when they went after my wife, they scared her to such an extent and the police visiting scared her, and also losing all my income and finally the pressure drove us apart.’

He said his friends outside of ‘gender critical activism’ disappeared.

Linehan said the first time he heard of Ms Brooks was ‘when he was at Let’s Women Speak event he was wearing a mirrored mask, jostling with people, trying to get into fights.

‘The time he wore a suffragette scarf was when I began to see him as a young solider in trans activism. I could see he was a misogynist, abusive, snide and depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.

‘The bar to insult or annoy trans activists is incredibly low- the idea that saying someone’s real sex or real name is some great taboo is a completely concocted taboo.

'To to follow that taboo I would be forced to lie - that’s why it’s so toxic because trans activists have spent 10 years demonising any woman who stands up for herself.’

Linehan said he knew Ms Brooks was hanging around the meeting where insects were released ‘with some very bad people’.

‘I knew it was the kind of thing the claimant would find very funny.

'A lot of women famously do not like insects, they have a natural revulsion against insects. This is a form of terrorism that’s very specifically aimed at women.’

He said: ‘Because I’ve been in the news a lot of people are getting braver about speaking about this issue but before that they haven’t.

‘The violence and toxicity of the trans debate comes entirely from the trans side, on the gender critical side no one has ever sent a rape threat, a death threat but the mainstream of trans activism is all about death threats, rape threats, all about destroying livelihoods.’

He said the purpose of his tweets was to make people be on their guard the next time Ms Brooks attended a meeting.

‘I had absolutely zero fear anyone on the gender critical side would do anything violent or physical to him,’ he said.

‘We don’t know his real name, I personally don’t believe he’s 18, if he can fake a name on a certificate he can also fake an age. I wanted the police to be aware of him so at least they couldn’t claim ignorance.

‘When I wrote Father Ted we never expected anyone to dox us or do anything to us but as soon as I ran in with these activists they found my address and printed it online.’

He said Ms Brooks was using her phone as a ‘weapon’ at the 'Battle of Ideas' by taking videos of attendees.

‘It was a threat of doxing, reporting people to their employers, taking those photos trying to make people feel very uneasy and frightened that they will be called a bigot or something.’

He said he had been told Ms Brooks was waiting for him outside and when he saw her they had a ‘stupid little argument’.

‘When I speak to these people my adrenaline always shoots up because they’re just nasty people, it was a very childish shouting match,' said Linehan

‘When I turned around again and his camera was in my face I instinctively grabbed it put it behind my back, he looked furious and I threw it across the street.

‘Then he followed us for about a 20 minute walk before I asked police officers to speak to him so they couldn’t get away.’

‘My adrenaline was up, I was angry so I threw it away. By throwing it away was the first time since I left the building he moved more than two feet away from me so that was a nice moment.

‘It was instinctive, in fact as soon as I did it I thought that was a mistake.’

He said they then walked toward the House of Commons.

‘That was a long walk with him on the phone to the police saying "he just threw my phone", we got to the House of Commons and said "can you just hang onto this guy for few minutes so we can get out of here".

‘If I had my wits about me and not just wanted to get away I would have asked them to arrest him.

‘I find police are basically working for trans activists these days, they don’t understand the issue and they believe everything trans activists say to them.’

Linehan said the only insult he regretted against Ms Brooks was calling her a ‘sissy porn-watching scumbag’.

’It was based on the fact most trans identified men [the term used for trans women by people who do not believe thye are female] think thet are trans identified because of pornography,'he explained,

Trans identified men is the term used for trans women by people who do not believe they are female].

Linehan adde: ‘You’re trying to make out I’m a bigot because I believe in women’s rights and oppose men trying to intimidate and bully women.’

He said Ms Brooks has been involved in trans activism since 2013.

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker said Ms Brooks would have been six years old at that time.

‘So he says,’ Linehan replied.

Ms Faure Walker said that Ms Brooks’ driving licence proves she is 18.

‘If you can lie about your name and sex you can lie about anything,’ Linehan replied.

Linehan said: ‘I had a secret meeting once with Stonewall where they tired to convince me men were women, women were men and I just couldn’t buy it.'

Linehan said he and others submitted a large evidence file about Ms Brooks to the police and she was arrested for one day but released without charge.

When asked if he was trying to intrude on Ms Brooks’ life he said: ‘I’m trying to intrude on his life because he’s a criminal, he harasses women, he’s a bully and a sadist.

‘If the police would actually arrest these guys instead of working for them they could solve a lot of crime.

‘There are only about five or six of these men who are doing the worst of this and the police jump to attention every time they snap their fingers.’

Ms Faure Walker said: ‘Why is it that you posting relentless abuse about Ms Brooks isn’t harassment?’

‘Because if he didn’t harass women, I would never even have mentioned his name.’ Linehan said.

Linehan said he hates trans activists: ‘I hate them because they hate women and I think anyone who hates and bullies women is beneath contempt.’

The trial was adjourned and will resume on October 29.

• Coverage courtesy of Court News UK.

Published: 5 Sep 2025