Father Ted co-creator's conviction for damaging trans activist's phone overturned

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has had his conviction for damaging a transgender activist's mobile phone overturned.

Last November, Linehan was convicted of criminal damage, but was cleared of harassing Sophia Brooks on social media.

The criminal damage case related to a confrontation between Linehan and Brooks in October 2024, outside the Battle of Ideas conference in London.

At the end of an appeal hearing at London's Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Justice Amanda Tipples said: "Having considered all the evidence before us, we cannot be sure that the damage to the complainant's phone was caused by Mr Linehan... We therefore found Mr Linehan not guilty of the offence."

The original trial in November heard that Brooks, a trans woman who was 17 at the time, confronted Linehan and filmed him outside the conference.

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.

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

She also said the report made by Brooks on the evening of 19 October 2024 did not mention damage to the phone, but referred to harassment instead.

"It is not until the 7th of November 2024 that the complainant takes her phone to the Apple store for an assessment of damage that Mr Linehan 'may have caused'," the judge said, quoting an email sent by Brooks to the police.

Speaking outside court, Linehan said the decision was "very welcome but this case should never have got to court".

He said: "The police have failed in their duty to properly and fairly investigate – preferring instead to support one side over the other in a debate.

"All this has done is erode the faith the public should be able to have in the police.

"We are sick of two-tier policing and I hope with today's verdict it will end."

This case was not connected to separate allegations that led to Linehan's much-publicised arrest at Heathrow Airport last September.

He was met by armed officers and held on suspicion of inciting violence in posts on X, sparking a backlash from some public figures and politicians, and inflaming a fierce debate about policing and free speech.

In October, the Metropolitan Police dropped its investigation after the Crown Prosecution Service decided no further action should be taken.