Graham Linehan's criminal damage conviction overturned

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

8 May 2026

There was some much welcome news as we headed into the bank holiday weekend. The Irish comedian and creator of Father Ted, Graham Linehan, has been cleared of criminal damage to a trans activist's phone — and the Free Speech Union is proud to have stood by him throughout.

Some context first. Last November, Graham was cleared of harassing trans activist Sophia Brookes on social media by District Judge Briony Clarke, who ruled that while his posts were "deeply unpleasant, insulting and even unnecessary", they did not amount to "oppressive" conduct. That day was not, however, an unqualified victory: Graham was also convicted of criminal damage after it was alleged he had snatched Brookes's phone and thrown it to the ground outside the Battle of Ideas Festival in October 2024, causing £369 worth of damage.

That conviction has now been overturned. At the conclusion of a two-day hearing at Southwark Crown Court, Mrs Justice Amanda Tipples ruled that it was not established that Graham had caused the damage at all. She said: "Having considered all the evidence before us, we cannot be sure that the damage to the complainant's phone was caused by Mr Linehan on the evening of the 19th of October 2024. We therefore find Mr Linehan not guilty of the offence."

The appeal hearing shed further light on what had actually taken place outside the Festival. Sophia Brookes admitted she had wanted to "shame Graham Linehan into an apology" — an apology for his having described her as a "domestic terrorist" on social media. Graham's barrister, Sarah Vine KC, was direct in her assessment: "The reality, Ms Brookes, is that you were at the Battle of Ideas to cause disruption, to provoke and needle gender-critical people into an adverse reaction, in the hope you could complain they were behaving poorly, or even criminally. And in Graham Linehan, you found the perfect target."

Vine described the allegation as part of a broader campaign by trans activists to discredit gender-critical individuals for political ends. Speaking outside the court, Graham told his supporters: "There's been a troubling pattern of police forces around the country who believe trans rights activists time and time again, even when there has been overwhelming evidence that complaints have been made against gender-critical campaigners in bad faith. The police have failed in their duty to properly and fairly investigate, preferring instead to support one side over the other in an important debate. All this has done is erode the faith the public should be able to have in the police."

He is right. In September 2025, Graham was arrested at Heathrow Airport by five armed police officers as he travelled back from his home in Arizona, on the basis of three gender-critical posts he had made on X. The Crown Prosecution Service announced six weeks later that no further action would be taken. Shortly afterwards, the Metropolitan Police announced they would no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents.

In an article for The Telegraph, Graham wrote that "for ten years, a small group of activists has used the police and the courts as their private army." He recounts police first visiting his home following a complaint by trans activist Stephanie Hayden, and believes these encounters contributed to the breakdown of his marriage. The cumulative effect was, ultimately, to drive him out of the country altogether. As he put it: "It's one of the reasons I left the UK. I couldn't be sure I wouldn't get a knock at the door at any moment, from a police force that works harder for men dressed as women than it ever has for women themselves."

Gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010 — a protection reaffirmed emphatically by the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in April 2025. And yet cases involving individuals censored, harassed, or prosecuted for holding such beliefs remain the single largest category of cases the Free Speech Union handles.

Graham has paid an extraordinary personal price for his willingness to speak plainly about women's rights. The Free Speech Union is proud to have supported him — and we are delighted by this outcome. But we agree with Graham entirely: this case should never have come to court in the first place.

Read more from Graham in The Telegraph.