Met Police pay Graham Linehan £25,000 compensation over Heathrow arrest.

[Imnobody4]

Great news, I'm really pleased for Graham.
The Metropolitan Police have paid £25,000 in compensation to Graham Linehan after his arrest at Heathrow over his gender-critical social media posts.
In a letter to the Father Ted co-creator, the force accepted there had been “shortcomings in the investigation, the arrest and the imposition of bail conditions”.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “We recognise the considerable distress caused to Mr Linehan, and have offered our sincere apologies.
“This case prompted a significant change, which means the Met no longer investigates non-crime hate incidents. We believe this will provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.”

www.thetimes.com/article/8126375b-2d4e-434c-a828-6876a990bcaf?shareToken=318bdc3f8684139b85bafada73954ba6

Strange.

Surly, throwing a mobile phone to the floor is being reckless as to whether the phone would be destroyed or damaged

If the phone hadn't been shoved in his face then there would have been no need to knock it away.

Criminal damage requires the intent to damage, and that intent needs to be proved to an acceptable standard in court.

Quite a lot of less bright folk struggle with the concepts of mens and actus rea. Which is odd, because it's often these folk who are the self proclaimed experts on "da law" .....

It's irrelevant whether the action of throwing the phone was reckless or not. There was insufficient evidence that the phone was undamaged before the incident & damaged afterwards.

You also need to show the damage was done with intent.

Just knocking something out of someones hand - especially if that hand is waved in front of your face in a manner that might be construed as aggressive - doesn't make it a criminal offence.

And once you remove the criminal element to the incident, you are back to good old fashioned "it's a civil matter, sir".

Oh another wide eyed ingenue on a glinner thread

You don't need to prove intent for criminal damage.

A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence.

I read that he took it and threw it onto the floor. If that is the case then its reckless as to whether the phone would be damaged by his actions.

The fact that it was damaged would be enough.
i.e - its not up to the victim to prove the exact state of the phone prior to the damage being caused. Otherwise I could walk up to someone's car in the street and put a brick through their window and say to them "you need to prove it wasn't damaged prior to me throwing the brick at you car"

Just seems odd to me thats all

Not at all - just asking a question on a discussion forum - perhaps you would like to answer.........

Link to news report about appeal for any posters who are confused

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx2vk4zx3xo

Shrug.

Clearly the court had more information at it's disposal than can fit in the margins of MN.

We seem to have an odd situation where all reporting is naturally biased in some way, right up until it becomes gospel for one side in an agenda.

no thank you. Is your internet broken? Are you like unable to use google or bbc news? Perhaps you are here so that we can serve you up answers which are easily found, like some kind of internet data butlers?

Still very bizarre...

"....The trial judge said Linehan "took the phone and threw it because he was angry and fed up".
The appeal hearing was shown footage filmed on Brooks' phone in the moments leading up to the incident, and was also shown a video in which Linehan appeared to grab or slap the phone out of Brooks' hands..."

So he has taken the phone and thrown it or slapped it out of the hands.

But Mrs Justice Tipples said there was no contemporaneous evidence demonstrating the condition of the phone immediately before or after the incident.

So - I am indeed free just to throw a brick through someones car window. For me to be guilty of damage the owner must have "...contemporaneous evidence demonstrating the condition of the window immediately before..."

Or if someone tries to steal my phone as I walk down a street, grabs it from my hand but it falls to he floor and smashes the screen. For me to make a claim of criminal damage - I am going to need evidence that the screen was in good condition immediately before it was grabbed.

In my view he is being reckless in his actions as to whether the phone would be damaged.

Doesn't appear to be any answers their either

It's crazy that the police are repeatedly spaffing our public resources up the wall at the behest of deranged individuals. It's crazy that an organisation not short of actual professional detectives ended up playing a role as 'useful idiots' and it's us the GBP taxpayers footing the bill.

Armed police have plenty to be getting on with, and the man on the clapham omnibus I'm sure would not include arresting a man for twitter activity in their job list of the day.

Money that was supposed to be spent on policing that has now been paid out to a private individual due to Met police misconduct.

Lessons better fucking had be learned.

Why are you asking Mumsnet? Ask the judge who made the judgment.

I read that...

Now you're reading different, why is that not making the same impact as the first stuff you read?

Why are you shit stirring so late in the day, this happened months ago, why didn't you roll out your armchair legal degree then?

In my view he is being reckless in his actions as to whether the phone would be damaged.

The judge who heard all the evidence came to a different conclusion perhaps unsurprisingly as Sophia Brooks was a very shifty witness & the phone was several years old.

Yes - I can read his summing up, it just does not seem to make sense to me that's all

But hey-ho - the courts are always right I suppose - never any miscarriages of justice in this country and all that.......

But Mrs Justice Tipples said there was no contemporaneous evidence demonstrating the condition of the phone immediately before or after the incident.

Ah ... (very very faint light dawning) ... this isn't quite saying there was no damage. It is saying there is no proof before the court that the damage occurred as a result of the actions in question. (Or so I read it). Of course the question is whose job was it to present such evidence to the court.

I'll stick to coding ... much less room for confusion 😀

I'd agree with your last point. Glinner was initially found guilty. It would appear there would have been a miscarriage of justice if he hadn't appealed. Feck knows what would have happened if he hadn't had a decent defence.

The courts are always right then.

So the 2% conviction rate for rape must mean that the the other 98% are definitely innocent.

Your comparing knocking the phone out a gender addled idiots hand to rape. 🤯

No - I'm testing the notion that the courts decision must always be correct

The vast majority of rape complaints don't get anywhere near a court, that accounts for the bulk of the 98% that don't result in a conviction. This time-wasting nonevent however did see both the police and the CPS nurture it to trial. Perhaps if they applied themselves so fervently in seeking justice for rape victims we'd see better results for them?

Why?