Father Ted creator Graham Linehan was described as ‘relentless’ in his social media activity targeting a transgender woman he is accused of harassing, as reported in court.

The Irish comedy writer, 57, is accused by prosecutors of targeting Sophia Brooks on X having never met or interacted with her before. 

Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told that Linehan encountered Ms. Brooks for the first time outside the Battle of Ideas conference on October 19 of the previous year.

When she challenged him about his social media posts he is accused of telling her: ‘Go away groomer, go away you disgusting incel.’ 

The writer, known for TV shows like Father Ted, the IT Crowd, and Motherland, arrived at court this morning just before the doors opened at 9 am.

He posed for photographers with a smile, clad in a grey suit and white shirt, and carried a placard with the transgender flag. One side read ‘Keep men out of women’s sports,’ and the other stated ‘There’s no such thing as a ‘transgender child.”

Supporters, including Lord Young from the Free Speech Union, were present.

He remarked to a supporter about his recent Heathrow arrest earlier this week, saying: ‘I would have enjoyed the arrest a bit more if I knew what was happening.’

Linehan was seized by five armed guards upon his arrival at the airport, prompting accusations of a heavy handed approach to policing social media.

This case involves separate accusations that Linehan harassed Ms. Brooks by making derogatory social media posts about her between October 11 and October 27 of last year.

He is also charged with damaging her mobile phone to the value of £369 on October 27 last year.

Linehan sat in the dock wearing glasses, a grey jacket, white shirt and navy trousers.

He spoke to confirm his name and date of birth and waved to anti-trans protestors sat in the public gallery. Pro-trans protestors, some wearing rainbow face masks and t-shirts, were also in the gallery.

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker accused Linehan of being ‘relentless’ in his tweets about Ms Brooks, someone he had never met or interacted with.

Ms Brooks, who is now 18, was constantly referred to using the male pronouns by Linehan, the prosecutor told the court.

The prosecutor said: ‘These posts were not merely irritating or annoying. These posts were not provoked by anything she (Ms Brooks) did to Mr Linehan. She was not even in contact when he began to post about her.

‘They were not based on her personal experience, they had not even met when the posts started.

‘The purpose of these posts, say the prosecution, was not merely to relay events, to express political opinion, to criticise, to help id perps, or to solve any crime.

‘Rather, they were verbally abusive and vindictive and reflected, say the prosecution, Mr Linehan’s deep disliking of Miss Brooks.’

The court heard Linehan referred to Ms Brooks as ‘Tarquin’ on social media and referred to her as a ‘malignant narcissist’ and an ‘absolute psycho’.

Prosecutor Ms Faure Walker said the pair met for the first time in person outside the Battle of Ideas conference on October 19 last year.

Ms Brooks had been inside and was videoing but was escorted out at about 3.15pm.

While filing on her phone, Miss Brooks called out Linehan’s name and asked why he called her a ‘domestic terrorist’, the court heard.

The prosecutor said: ‘At this point Mr Linehan could have explained why he called her a domestic terrorist, if he had an explanation or even ignored her.

‘Rather, he responded in a way which is indicative of his extreme personal animosity towards her.’

The court heard Linehan said to Ms Brooks: ‘Go away groomer, go away you disgusting incel’, understood to be a reference to ‘involuntarily celibate’.

The prosecutor said: ‘Still outside the venue, Ms Brooks approached him while filming and asked: ‘Why do you think it’s acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?’

‘She was not committing any crime or causing any physical threat.

‘He didn’t answer the question, he didn’t explain why he called her a domestic terrorist, but was angry and he deliberately whacked the phone out of Ms Brooks’ hand. This caused damage to the phone.’

The prosecutor said Linehan was ‘clearly proud’ of what he had done because he tweeted: ‘I’m quite proud that I grabbed his phone and threw it across the road. He was furious.’

Ms Faure Walker said that in ‘one of several posts mocking he gender Identity’, someone else posted a redacted copy of Ms Brooks’ driving licence, which referred to ‘Sophia’.

The court heard Linehan wrote: ‘That couldn’t be Tarquin cos he’s a bloke and that’s a girl’s name.’

Linehan also wrote: ‘If you encounter Tarquin in the wild, try to resist the urge to stick his cameras up his arse.’

This prompted a rippled of laughter from some in the public gallery.

The prosecutor said Ms Brooks ‘felt alarmed or distressed’ as a result.

Linehan was interviewed under caution on February 5 this year and gave officers a prepared statement.

The prosecutor said that in summary, Linehan considered the complainant, who he referred to as Tarquin, had harassed him by approaching him and ‘filming him at close quarters’.

The court heard Linehan claimed he tried to ignore the compliant, but the complainant approached him and made a ‘provocative statement’.

He told police that throwing the phone was a ‘reflex response’.

Linehan said the posts ‘did not amount to harassment’, and describing himself as a journalist, wanted to expose the ‘tactics’ of trans activists.

Ms Brooks sat in the witness box wearing a blue shirt, and denied allegations of homophobia from Linehan.

Asked by the prosecutor if she was homophobic, she replied: ‘No, I am a bisexual person.’ 

Ms Brooks said she understood descriptions about a ‘deeply disturbed sociopath’ and being a ‘domestic terrorist’ in posts by Linehan made her felt ‘alarmed and distressed.’

She said she was branded these things ‘by a relatively famous person with over 500,000 followers, any of which could see Mr Linehan’s post and cause great harm to me’.

Ms Brooks said told magistrates she had never used the name ‘Tarquin’ and believed she had been called it because it is ‘to do with my poshness’.

Asked who had used that name online to describe her, Ms Brooks said: ‘Graham Linehan.’  

Linehan hit the headlines earlier this week when he was detained by police accused of inciting violence on Twitter as he arrived back in the UK from his home in Scottdale, in the south-western US state of Arizona, ahead of today’s trial.

His arrest was based on a series of tweets he posted in April.

One of the posts said: ‘If 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.’

Another was a photograph of a trans-rights protest, with the comment ‘a photo you can smell’, with a follow-up post saying: ‘I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.’

Linehan said he had to be taken to hospital following his arrest because his blood pressure rocketed. He was later discharged from hospital and released by police on bail pending further inquiries.

Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch said Linehan’s arrest showed ‘values of free speech are being slowly eroded by people weaponising the law and using it for petty squabbling’.

Writing in today’s Daily Mail, she said: ‘The whole episode raises serious questions. What does it say about our country that someone can be flagged as they fly home from the US, not for terrorism, trafficking or fraud, but for expressing opinions online?’

Debate around his arrest became so strong that the head of the Metropolitan Police, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, was forced to intervene with a statement yesterday which put him on collision course with the Government.

He defended his officers and said they were in an ‘impossible position’ due to the laws on hate speech, and said they should not be ‘policing toxic culture wars debates’.

Sir Mark said he would make suggestions to the Government about how laws governing social media posts could be changed, and is ready to test new approaches ‘within a matter of weeks’.

In his first statement after the controversy erupted, Sir Mark said: ‘While the decision to investigate and ultimately arrest the man was made within existing legislation, which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence, I understand the concern caused by such incidents given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world.

‘Most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers.

‘Such actions can and do have serious and violent real-world implications.

‘But when it comes to lesser cases, where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments, who have given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they’re reported.

‘Then they are obliged to follow all lines of inquiry and take action as appropriate.

‘I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position.’

‘We have a long history of free speech in this country. I’m very proud of that and I will always defend it.’

Sir Keir Starmer subsequently said that ‘we must ensure the police focus on the most serious issues’.

He told Prime Minister’s Questions: ‘The issues that matter most to our constituencies and all communities, and that includes tackling issues like anti-social behaviour, knife crime and violence.

And Health Secretary Wes Streeting suggested the Government could look at legislation if the law is ‘not getting the balance right’ on free speech, and said the Government wants ‘to see people being kept safe by policing streets, not just policing tweets’.

Senior Tory Sir James Cleverly said the arrest looked like a ‘real overreaction’ to what was ‘self-evidently a joke’.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick described the incident as ‘a complete waste of police time’, adding: ‘We desperately need to end this nonsense and go after actual criminals.’

The Bafta-winning Irishman has become an outspoken gender activist, supported by the lieks of Harry Potter creator JK Rowling.

But he has also described how his career – which included minor actor roles in comedies including I’m Alan Partridge – ‘fell away’ when he became embroiled in the transgender debate, and referred to himself once as ‘the most hated man on the internet’.

He was banned in 2020 from Twitter after writing ‘Men aren’t women tho’ before later being reinstated by X founder Elon Musk.

A long-awaited Father Ted musical was then axed in 2022 because of Linehan’s controversial political opinions.

When two venues cancelled his 2023 Edinburgh Fringe shows, the now-divorced Linehan opted to perform his set outside the Scottish Parliament.

The Dublin-born activist previously praised the Supreme Court’s decision to confirm that the word ‘woman’ refers to biological sex, meaning trans women are legally not women.

But he said ‘woke’ issues were permeating aspects of British life.

He said at the time: ‘The big problem we have is with TV commissioners. The artists are still out there but they have to get past these people who don’t really care about art. They care about imposing their beliefs on people.

‘If you look back at the 90s with Britpop, British art was famous all over the world and there was a real sense of excitement.

‘But over the last 10 years there’s been a dearth of notable stuff. Because these people have tied their hands and feet together.

‘It’s all very safe – almost trying not to get noticed.’

The trial is set to last two days.