Graham Linehan arrested on arrival at Heathrow Part 4

[IDareSay]

These threads have mostly been used to follow the case that has taken place at Westminster Magistrate's Court over the 4th and 5th September, (and will continue on the 29th October), but were created to follow the fallout of Graham's arrest at Heathrow on his return to the UK for this court case last week, and what is allegedly a conspiracy of TRAs to intimidate and harass a number of people, including Graham, with the alleged support of various police services.

He is currently on trial for alleged harassment of a trans identified male and criminal damage to the man's phone. The charges stem from a series of events in October 2024 at Battle of Ideas.

Part 1 here
Part 2 here
Part 3 here
Graham's account of the arrest here
You can support his Substack here
Or buy him a coffee here

Free Speech Union are running a fundraiser to support a claim against the Met in reference to the Heathrow arrest. Just search FSU and Graham Linehan fundraiser and it should be easy to find. At the time of posting it has reached 64% of its stretch target.
The FSU have managed to get the bail condition that @Glinner must not post on X removed, so he is now freely posting on there again.

Most of the mainstream media have reported on the case, but none have covered it as well as Nick Wallis. Follow him on X for live posting from the court again on 29th October.
You can support Nick here (posted Friday 5th September):
"I am deeply grateful to everyone who has seen fit to bung me the cost of a coffee, a pint or even a bloody London pint since I found out I was able to come back today. If you think you can afford to make a small donation, there’s more info here:"
https://store29806256.company.site

Yes, sorry, I meant very few speaking on the GC side.

The Irish Times has had 2 very carefully worded articles referring to the GL arrest, about the importance of free speech (and smug about this wouldn't happen here) all tiptoeing round the issues.

Oh right Bruach....yes I struggle to think of any ? Apart sites like Gript. But , as they're always banging on about the evils of liberalism in general they're easily dismissed.

Yes, it does seem so.

He has discretion about which cases to investigate. Even though the hate speech type laws are badly drafted with circular definitions or no definitions, etc etc, the bar for taking action is supposed to be very high. He could set the tone for his force but chooses not to.

If threats of rape and death against named women by accounts whose authors are known
are not investigated

but saying that a large group of TRAs (not even necessarily trans identifying) smell
IS investigated

we can see that the law is not the problem
police misogyny IS

Exactly. Saying they need the law changed is ridiculous. They are passing the buck. Not to say the law shouldn’t be changed but the police are absolutely culpable.

Yes. And when you look at how individual, named women are threatened with rape and violence online by MRAs and TRAs (and often MRA-TRAs, let’s be honest), and then compare that to how the Met has treated women and turned a blind eye to sex predators in its own ranks - well, it tells a story, doesn’t it?

I do hope there’s a few journalists looking at this. The explosive factor is off the charts.

What are the laws that underpin what the police do?

I didn’t think women were covered that’s the major issue for us.

We have no legal recourse for hate and abuse but others do. I want that changed.

The LAW is not the problem.

IMPLEMENTATION of the law is the problem

see also illegal electric scooters
see also dangerous driving
see also rape conviction rates
see also the legal right to single sex spaces that the police ignore

People can shout with caps but it doesn’t do much.

Everyone can see it’s ridiculous and unjust and the politicians pass the buck to the police.

It’s probably not that hard to change either through better guidance or I’d look at it all. We do not have a good system rn, it’s a mess and harms women.

The legislation is fine.
Its the fact that the Police are (rightly) given leeway
but (wrongly) apply it in a sexist manner

Rowley has said he doesn’t want the police to deal with this stuff.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has said officers should not be “policing toxic culture wars debates” as the Father Ted creator Graham Linehan vowed to sue after his arrest over social media posts.

I agree with that.

The politicians voted through illiberal laws, probably with an eye to the future to have repressive means to hand that would suit their own cause. In addition, the Police are acting in a strongly partisan manner to suit their own purposes.

Both need to be put under pressure to behave properly.

This is fair

I think it's surprising that a man who has at his command hundreds of the finest detectives in the UK, cannot find his big boy pants on this issue.

If you admit there is a problem, you have to do something about that said problem.

He has no interest in doing his own fucking job properly.

I don't know about his big boy pants, but he does have an oversized hat.

Rowley saying "my hands are tied, I have to arrest Glinner unless Parliament changes the law" will be of interest to any Londoner who's reported a burglary or mugging and all the police action they've seen is to be given a crime number.

As a coincidence, at the moment I'm listening to https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002h38n and they're just talking about how the Met colluded with McDonald's to help them with in the McLibel case. Spying on McDonald's' opponents, handing over valuable intelligence material, etc. The Met were all over this but ended up getting away with it pretty much scot-free.

This was concurrent with their undercover officers having illegal sexual relationships with female protestors and in at least one case having fathering children iirc?

Am I imagining it or was one of the McLibel women actually a victim of this too?

323,000 views for Helens tweet linking to her article.

We’ve created a situation where people report tweets and it leads to arrests like this. I don’t think women are covered when they get abuse which is even worse.

We have illiberal anti women legislation. If people want the police to change, fine go for that. I want the system looked at.

They’re too busy searching for the Met’s sense of proportion and basic rational judgement.

(well no, they’re not. Seem more engaged in trying to find something to hide their responsibility for such things behind)

Yes, it was Helen Steel, of the McLibel case, who was also conned into a long-term sexual relationship by an undercover police officer who was attempting to infiltrate protest groups.

The Met were (and possibly still are) a law unto themselves.

You're right. Yes, it was Helen Steel, one of the McLibel Two, who had a relationship with undercover police officer John Dines, and uncovering the true nature of that during the McLibel events, was one of the things to crack open the Undercover Policing scandal.