Father Ted creator Graham Linehan has claimed he was arrested at Heathrow Airport after posting three controversial tweets about trans people.
The five-time Bafta winner, 57, said he was detained by five armed officers upon landing in London from Arizona, just days before his separate trial for harassment and criminal damage charges involving a transgender woman.
In a message to his Substack subscribers, Linehan said: “The moment I stepped off the plane, five armed police officers were waiting. They told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where knife crime and sexual assaults are rife, the state sent five officers to arrest a comedy writer.”
Linehan, best known for creating Father Ted, The IT Crowd, and Black Books, has in recent years become a divisive figure over his outspoken views on trans rights. He claimed that his comments — including one referencing a “punch in the bollocks” — were satirical and not a call for violence. “It was about the height difference between men and women,” he explained, adding that one female officer even joked, “We’re not THAT small.”
He said he was held in a small green-tiled cell at Heathrow police station, where his belongings were confiscated. Later, a nurse found his blood pressure was over 200, prompting an emergency hospital transfer. “The stress of being arrested for jokes was literally threatening my life,” he wrote, describing how doctors told him the episode was stress-induced and worsened by long-haul travel.
Linehan has long argued that his career and marriage were ruined because of his stance on trans issues. In 2018, he also survived cancer. His memoir, Tough Crowd: How I Made and Lost a Career in Comedy, was published in 2023.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed a man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to posts on X. He has since been bailed until October and barred from using the platform.
The case is separate from his upcoming trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where he denies harassing transgender woman Sophia Brooks and damaging her phone during an alleged altercation at a festival in 2024.
Linehan insisted: “This is part of a long history of the police acting as a goon squad for trans rights activists. I look forward to fighting this in court.”
