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

Hayden has always argued it’s a spent conviction and therefore can’t be published.

No idea if you have to declare why you want a copy of a conviction when you apply for it though.

Thanks. I assume that means posting anything about it, without the certificate, as that's technically publishing. But it would still be picked up on an enhanced disclosure check, I believe, it hasn't ceased to exist just because he wants it to.

Of course by arguing about disclosure he just draws attention to the disclosure thus justifying the use of this lady

If it’s a conviction under a different name and/or sex, would it show up on a DBS?

You are supposed to include previous names. But a pound to a penny Hayden wouldn't. It's an alarming loophole that relies on people being honest. And if you aren't honest about your own sex, you're unlikely to be honest about anything else.

I've only processed them from the employer side, where if the documents supplied match what they entered into the portal, I submit. How deep the dive is when they are sent off, I don't know.

I am a woman, I am not a robot, I am biological therefore I am a biological woman.

.. those crimes were committed by a biological man. I am not a biological man therefore I did not commit those crimes ...

Exactly.

If society must believe you when you speak obvious falsehoods then you have free reign to claim just about anything

I thought this was a useful summary of spent convictions- it's written for people with a criminal record, so the angle is stopping or avoiding disclosure.

A journalist disclosing a spent conviction is not committing a criminal offence - however they say there could be a potential claim for defamation and list of accepted defences including justification, fair comment and privilege.

I'm sure the lovely Steph has been all over this!

https://unlock.org.uk/advice/reporting-criminal-records-media/#:~:text=This%20means%20that%20in%20law,open%20to%20accusations%20of%20defamation.

Sex offenders are notoriously law abiding and honest.

The employer makes the decision on receiving the check results, it's not always a blanket no if something shows up. I had a distressed researcher in my office saying something would. She worked in our psychology babylab, so enhanced checks. When she told me through tears that it was a caution for possession of an offensive weapon, and it was that she'd had pepper spray in her handbag on holiday in France, forgotten to remove it when she came back, and it's illegal here, it was no issue at all for us.

But she was upfront and honest, which makes the difference, and had been doing brilliant work for 5 years already, it was a renewal.

It has nothing to do with being stupid. It has everything to do with being measured on “performance” that makes jumping to defend transwomen from online hurty words a much easier win than trying to solve actual crimes. And you don’t even have to put the results of your work in front of the CPS! Amazing.

As I was saying upthread, they've got a system of perverse incentives and have adapted to that pretty well.

Another way of thinking about it might be that a smart chief constable would realise that their force will be judged by the public on whether they're tackling crime rather than bullshit internal targets, and might bring in a different plan.

But, with the kind of conformism that exists in institutions like that police, chief constables will need some kind of external pressure to concentrate their minds.

Little known fact. The PNC information does not need to be accurate.

What??

I could be wrong, but the PNC includes unsubstantiated intelligence, I think?

There could be valid reason for that but shouldn’t it be clearly marked as such? Unlike the ‘crimes’ being reported and taken at face value.

See also ...

The police consider 'dead-naming' to be a crime. Therefore, for me to include my 'dead-name' on the form would be a crime. I am not a criminal so I did not include my 'dead-name'

The Telegraph have an article on Harry Miller's discovery after his SAR

https://archive.ph/m8woX

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/12/free-speech-champion-harassed-trans-police-hate-crime/

I agree. It’s one thing to be tracking intelligence on suspected terror suspects or people in organised crime gangs. But this data presumably isn’t widely shared, wouldn’t come up in a DBS, etc.

The NCHIs are different in that they basically ‘convict’ ordinary people of a hate crime based on the say so of a randomer, and the person has no ability to defend themself.

You are thinking of a different system, PND (Police National Database). Information on there is graded according to how reliable it is, though - quite different to what’s being described here.

https://www.intelligencewithsteve.com/post/the-5-minute-guide-to-the-intelligence-grading-process-and-its-application-in-osint

Surely there would be some marker saying "allegedly" or "intelligence sourced" or "being investigated " ??

PNC information most certainly does need to be accurate! Please don’t confuse PNC and PND. I’ve already posted a link explaining how info on PND is evaluated.

FGS, the last thing we need is people coming up with “solutions” based on pure BS. (And it would be an irony, given the problems we’re discussing here around false accusations.)

This is why I would like to know where the “crimes” are being recorded. It would be a big deal if it was on PNC.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. So quite a different implication to having a NCHI logged against you, unbeknownst to you, where you aren't in a position to defend yourself.