Graham Linehan arrested on arrival at Heathrow Part 2

[IDareSay]

First thread here

Started thread 2 as this seems destined to run for some time...

Mustn't they just? It must be rather taxing to them.

I think we are going to start to see this become a potential thread.

Someone with a voice needs to start talking about how SLAPPing is going on and that's what part of the Grift is.

My brother, who was a press officer for a police force saw things that led him to give me similar advice, pressing home the point that rapists build up in their boundary pushing, from creeping on women to horrific opportunistic attacks. He advised me to react with violence to any unwanted touching or boundary pushing (somehow missing that for years I had in fact been punching gropers, in the balls, the face, anywhere my fight reaction landed, but hey ho, my brother, I gave him a pass).

Then he started working for the GMC and suddenly I was supposed to be ok with creepy men invading women’s places and ignore all his previous advice. We haven’t spoken since, as he was pretty shitty about it and I can’t unsee how the mask dropped. I sometimes wonder how these fuckers will walk this back, certain that it somehow won’t be their fault, or even admitted as an error of judgment.

The public sector has been so enthusiastically crushing women’s rights to safety for years, it cannot just be stupidity, there’s wilfulness here. They just leapt on the chance to push us back in our place.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36562495/trans-activist-graham-linehan-arrest-lynsay-watson-cop/

A trans activist at the centre of the Graham Linehan arrest is a disgraced cop behind scores of gender-based legal challenges.

Lynsay Watson, 58, was sacked by Leicestershire Police for branding former officer Harry Miller a woman- beater and a Nazi during an 18-month online campaign.

Watson labelled Mr Miller’s free speech group Fair Cop “domestic terrorists”.

A disciplinary hearing was told that when warned about conduct, Scottish-born Watson set up fake accounts to continue sending the “derogatory and abusive” messages.

Watson, born Alex Horwood, was dismissed for gross misconduct in October 2023 after three years with the force.

Watson has also taken legal action against three police forces as well as the British Transport Police Federation, the Police Appeals Tribunal, the Ministry of Defence and free speech campaigners.

Well this isn't going to make the Met's position any easier now is it?

Awks.

Nope.

Met Police are only force accountable to no one but Home Secretary... (Reason why they were referred to as Maggie Thatcher's personal private army in 80s) There's been a lot of campaigning around making Met accountable like other forces in UK for decades, especially when corruption and abuse charges come about but beyond devolving some budgetary decisions and consultation lip services to Mayor of London, they still onky have to answer directly to Home Secretary.

(name changed yesterday)

Bloody hell, I hate The Sun, but ...great coverage!

I think on one of the many threads about Glinner (FWR as a sort of back support group) there was a newspaper article or even a quote about why he had decided to move to the US.

So this is part of the ongoing punishment. Him having to return for the court case, and then all the vermin come out of the UK woodwork to try and get a bite of blood.

Good luck for tomorrow @Glinner. Hope you are having a good night's sleep.

The Met Police are operationally independent of the Government. They are overseen by the Home Secretary for national responsibilities but are overseen on day to day policing (e.g. burglaries and threats of violence) to the Mayor’s Office for Crime and Policing.

Thanks for the explanation. I wonder what Sadiq Khan thinks of all this...

The Met is an integral part of the structure of London and subject to rigorous scrutiny and checks by various bodies to ensure that it is operating in accordance to its mandate.

The Commissioner is accountable in law for exercising police powers and to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and is held to account for the delivery of policing by the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London. Both have a role in appointing the Commissioner, with the decision taken by the Home Secretary following consultation with the Mayor.

The Home Secretary also has a specific role regarding the functions of the Met that go beyond policing London – for example, counter-terrorism policing and the national policing functions that the Met carries out.

Continues at https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-us/about-the-met/governance/

So the Commissoner oversees the Met and is accountable to MOPAC in the first instance, and then to the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London?

This is exactly the problem though... They can say they're operationally independent of the government all they want but they're the only force in the whole of the UK that are literally governed directly by Home Secretary and (like I said) some things have been devolved to MoL but Home Secretary is the ultimate 'boss' (someone who we as voters, have NO SAY over their appointment)... The government has more direct interaction that we are never privvy to under the banner of 'security' with that force than any other force (that all have an elected Crime Commissioner and a much higher level of transparency and reporting).

Worse still is that Home Secretary governs Counter Terrorism, and we know how wide the scope that has become recently.

There's no way the HS's office wouldn't have been made aware of plans around this arrest beforehand - and if you think these things dont happen because they fall under 'operations' then you're very politically naive.

That all seems quite odd, doesn't it. Then the Commisioner asks for a change in law.

Oh wow well done the Sun, never thought I would say this but that is a good article. All the sunlight, please. And the little bit about the musical.

I listened to the audio clip as well. It's pretty upsetting to hear but bloody hell it's good to have that on record.

@glinner I think today is the day you are in court, I hope it goes as well as it can!

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-09-04/father-ted-creator-linehan-to-face-trial-over-alleged-harassment-of-trans-woman

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan is set to face trial, accused of harassing a transgender woman, days after his arrest over social media posts.

The 57-year-old comedy writer has denied harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks on social media and a further charge of damaging her mobile phone in October.

He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday for the start of his trial.

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.

According to court documents, he 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.

What's interesting is that the entire country is now going to see the allegations about harassing that person, in an entirely different context, due to the events of the last couple of days.

Lyndsey Watson's timing couldn't have been better.

The public have far more sympathy with someone they believe is goaded beyond endurance. Especially if that person is a transactivist, as many people have lost all patience with them.

I don't think there is no discussion of operational matters just because there is supposed to be operational independence.

But nothing that's come out from the police or the government in the aftermath suggests the top brass at the Met were aware it was going to happen in advance, let alone that they told Cooper about it or sought her opinion on whether to go ahead. I think the pressure for this has come from activists within the Met, not the Government. Just as it did under previous Governments.

I really hope the videos of Brooks's behaviour make all the mainstream and new media outlets.

Alex Gerko, widely believed to be the UK’s biggest taxpayer, has just donated to the free speech union for GL and posted on LinkedIn saying ‘I have donated and so should you’.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12689765/Transgender-police-officer-branded-free-speech-campaigner-Nazi-sacked.html

This old article about Lyndsey Watson.

I refer to the following:

Lynsay Watson, 56, sent former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period in which she also described him as a Fascist and a bigot and labelled his campaign group Fair Cop 'domestic terrorists'.

And

The panel heard she initially sent messages from an account in which she identified herself as a police officer - prompting Mr Miller to complain about her conduct to Leicestershire police.

But when she was spoken to by a senior officer - he simply advised her to post anonymously instead using a pseudonym, the panel was told. [My bold]

She went on to set up at least four different accounts with fake names, including one in which she claimed to be a retired officer from another force as well as a Home Office adviser on policing and transgender issues with a masters in legal studies.

Watson, a former nurse, admitted gross misconduct but had denied breaching standards relating to honesty and integrity.

She said Watson was 'entirely entitled to strongly disagree with Mr Miller and of course vice versa' but as a police officer, must treat the public with respect and courtesy.

AND

Watson admitted the allegations and breaching standards of professional behaviour relating to standards of authority; respect and courtesy, orders and instructions and disreputable conduct.

But panel chair Kate Meynell, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire police, said that when considering the contents of the post it 'is not clear how they would be a way of gathering evidence'.

Ms Meynell said: 'I find that the officer's conduct does amount to gross misconduct. It was inevitable PC Watson's conduct would impact on the reputation of Leicestershire police and police generally.' She said she accepted that Watson had 'deeply held views on the subject'.

'I also accept that she has a right to set those views out and defend and debate them,' she said.

I've only just realised that Lynsey Watson is not the trans police officer I thought he was - I thought he was the bloke with the taser but apparently not!

Haven't caught up with this thread yet but when I saw the comment below on the previous one (screenshot), I couldn't resist posting this about such a box....

Imagine not just being stuck in the tiny box of one tweet but in the internet itself.

(When I watched this episode a few years ago, I had no idea what the screenwriter looked like. For anyone who hasn't seen it before and/or was as ignorant as I was at that time... enjoy the cameo near the end 😉)

There are comments on twitter suggesting that Brooks was involved with the Cricket Crew but I'm not definite about this.

If it is true, today could get very interesting, very quickly and potentially even more embarrassing for the Met.

All those newspapers there reporting...

I also thought Lynsey was the taser bloke

I'm hoping someone is FOIing, although when I looked at the Met it seems they largely ignore FOI requests.

What is the Cricket Crew?

I can't understand why this isn't bigger news. My jaw was on the floor when I saw it.