"I do not find the complainant was as alarmed and distressed as they portrayed themselves to be."

Said District Judge Briony Clarke, quoted in "Graham Linehan cleared of harassing trans campaigner/The Father Ted co-creator was found guilty of criminal damage after smashing the phone of activist Sophia Brooks" (London Times).

The comedy writer, 57, was appearing at Westminster magistrates’ over allegations he had waged a social media campaign against [transgender campaigner Sophia] Brooks between October 11 and October 27, 2024. He posted about her more than 20 times on the social media platform X in which he used terms such as “sociopath”, “psycho”, “domestic terrorist” and “groomer”, the court heard. 

Linehan's reaction: "There are a group of dangerous men who are determined to bully women and girls, and to misuse the courts and police in furtherance of a misogynistic agenda. I’m proud to have stood up to them and I will continue to do so."

I wanted to blog this using a tweet from Lineham, but he tweets so much that I gave up scrolling looking for something from yesterday. Here's a search of his feed limited to the name "Sophia Brooks." To select one thing:

This was all very polite legal speak for “Brooks is a liar”. But as I said during the trial, people who are capable of lying about their sex will lie about anything https://t.co/Fz29yir4fG

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) November 25, 2025

I became interested in Lineham's legal ordeal when he appeared on Joe Rogan's show, blogged here, with embedded video of the whole show.

"This was not a case of we say tomayto, you say tomahto. This was we say tomato, while you cannot say anything these days because of the EU and its rules..."

"... not to mention the repressive government of Great Britain. A citizen of that benighted nation had come to Washington to talk about what he had seen: a fellow named Nigel Farage. 'I have come today to be a klaxon,' he said in his opening remarks. The klaxon appeared in a bright blue suit, telling the story of the Irish comedian Graham Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow airport this week for something he had said on social media. Linehan had been arrested by five armed police officers, he said. While it is perfectly ordinary for police to be armed to the teeth in the United States, 'it is a big deal in the UK,' he said. 'This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online.' American politicians and businesses and all freedom-loving people should say to the British government, "at what point did you become North Korea?"' Farage said."

From "Farage’s rules for free speech: talk about anything but your lunch/The Reform leader defended Democrats’ right to say dreadful things about him — but said some things were better left unsaid" (London Times).

The headline referred to Farage's "discretion" in refusing to say who he needed to leave to have lunch with — clearly, the President.

Also interesting: Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson talked so much, asking questions and interrupting answers, that "Farage asked the chairman if he could go and 'get a cup of coffee or something' until it was his turn to speak."

Here's the video. I love the freeze frame:

"It’s time this government told the police their job is to protect the public, not monitor social media for hurty words."

Said Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, quoted in "Comedian Graham Linehan arrested over trans tweets/The 57-year-old TV writer says he has been ordered not to use the social media platform X while he has been released on bail after being detained by armed police at Heathrow" (London Times).

"Hurty words" is a useful and musical phrase. Badenoch didn't coin it. I'm seeing, from back in March 2024 in the London Times, "Islamophobic tweets just ‘hurty words’, says mayoral candidate/Susan Hall, the Tory hoping to run London, was responding to claims about Sadiq Khan and Londonistan.'" Someone in the comments there writes: "Anyone using the infantile term 'hurty words' calls into question their suitability for high office." Is it infantile or is it a satirical way to accuse those who are complaining about hurtful speech of being big babies?

Also in the London Times, from last April, there's "Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages/Civil liberties groups say that the authorities are over-policing the internet and threatening free speech using vague laws": Quoting Toby Young, the founder and director of the Free Speech Union: "Given that only 11 per cent of the violent and sexual offence cases in England and Wales were closed after a suspect was caught or charged in the year to June 2024, a steep decline on previous years, it seems extraordinary that the police are wasting so much time arresting people for hurty words."

The OED has not yet acknowledged "hurty" — other than as a word in heraldry:

1828 Hurty, charged with hurts, or semée of hurts, that is, strewed over with hurts. W. Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica Gloss.

I believe hurts are blue dots — azure roundels.  

"The 'Father Ted' writer Graham Linehan has revealed that he was arrested on Monday by 5 armed police officers on arrival at Heathrow airport over 3 tweets about transgender activists...."

The London Times reports.

Linehan told The Times: “I was outraged by what happened. I’d just travelled ten hours from Arizona to voluntarily appear in another court case and they thought they had to send armed police to get me." 

"I was arrested for messages on X when I haven’t even been banned from X. The tweets are not my best work but they are completely harmless. I’m furious about what is happening to women in the UK and I despise trans activists because I think they are homophobic and misogynist.... I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me and banned from speaking online — all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers. To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.”

The Times prints the tweets in question: