![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2.81488336.jpg\" "\\"Graham")
Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has also appeared in court accused of harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks (Jonathan Brady\/PA)<\/p>\nFather Ted creator Graham Linehan has said he may never return to Britain as he told of being arrested at Heathrow Airport.<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old Irish comedy writer was arrested after flying in from Arizona on Monday over three posts he had made on X about transgender issues.<\/p>\n
I am just so happy in America. I feel so far away from all these nut-jobs who have the police wrapped around their finger <\/p>\n
Linehan, who now lives in the United States, told The Times: \u201cWhat happened to me on Monday was almost the perfect finale to my time in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to leave Britain because it really is impossible for me to stay. I just don\u2019t have freedom of speech in this country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen there\u2019s the fact that almost all my friends in comedy betrayed me. Not one of them stood up and said, \u2018Linehan\u2019s not a bigot\u2019, and of course, women need fair sports and single-sex spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am just so happy in America. I feel so far away from all these nut-jobs who have the police wrapped around their finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever come back to Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linehan, who has separately appeared at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court over the past few days, accused of harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks, said Met officers arresting him at the airport was \u201cthe greatest mistake they could have made\u201d.<\/p>\n
Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has also appeared in court accused of harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks (Jonathan Brady\/PA)<\/p>\n
He told the newspaper: \u201cI\u2019ve never felt better because I\u2019ve exposed the way British police are working in tandem with trans activists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police, after being called institutionally racist, have done this ridiculous over-compensation, which means that now they\u2019re literally working for a sort of Al Capone gang in fishnets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen are they going to start defending the women bringing complaints instead of these clearly bad-faith actors? They just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linehan said he was stopped by five armed police officers, although it is understood this is because they were from the Met\u2019s Aviation unit and routinely carry firearms.<\/p>\n
He was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence in posts on X.<\/p>\n
One of the posts said: \u201cIf a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another was a photograph of a trans-rights protest, with the comment \u201ca photo you can smell\u201d, with a follow-up post saying: \u201cI hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a clip published online, Linehan can be heard reacting with disbelief as he is stopped by officers.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2.81475324.jpg\" "\\"Graham")
The Father Ted co-creator has told The Times that he doesn\u2019t think he\u2019ll ever come back to Britain after moving to the United States (Ben Whitley\/PA)<\/p>\n
He tells one officer: \u201cI\u2019m a f****** comedy writer, I wrote Father Ted. Are you a f****** idiot?\u2026 It\u2019s just disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
When told he is under arrest, he shouts: \u201cHoly shit, I don\u2019t f****** believe it, do you know what this country looks like to America?\u201d before repeating \u201cI\u2019m going to sue you into the ground\u201d several times.<\/p>\n
He calls the officers \u201cf****** bastards\u201d and shouts \u201chow dare you\u201d before they urge him to calm down.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, Linehan can be heard saying: \u201cI\u2019m f****** infuriated. You scumbags are working for f****** arseholes who go into women\u2019s toilets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry Potter author JK Rowling was among those who reacted angrily to his arrest.<\/p>\n
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said his officers should not be \u201cpolicing toxic culture wars debates\u201d and had been left in an impossible position implementing the law as it stands.<\/p>\n
Linehan has denied one count of harassing Sophia Brooks on social media between October 11 and October 27 last year, and a further charge of criminal damage to their mobile phone on October 19 last year.<\/p>\n
The trial was adjourned and will resume on October 29, with Linehan released on bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father Ted creator Graham Linehan has said he may never return to Britain as he told of being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,34944,15,16,5,11302,9168,2104,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-47076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-linehan","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-place-europe","20":"tag-place-republic-of-ireland","21":"tag-place-uk","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}