{"id":110609,"date":"2025-10-29T16:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/110609\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:26:07","slug":"trans-activist-took-pictures-of-peoples-faces-before-confrontation-with-graham-linehan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/110609\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans activist \u2018took pictures of people\u2019s faces\u2019 before confrontation with Graham Linehan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A transgender activist \u201ctook pictures of people\u2019s faces\u201d at a conference before a confrontation with Father Ted creator Graham Linehan<\/a>, a court has been told.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old Irish comedy writer is on trial at London<\/a>\u2019s Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court, accused of harassing trans woman Sophia Brooks and damaging her mobile phone outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster on October 19th last year.<\/p>\n

District Judge Briony Clarke said the prosecution would address the complainant according to their \u201caffirmed gender name\u201d, while stating that the defendant\u2019s position was that the \u201ccomplainant is male\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence for the defence on Wednesday, Katherine Harris, co-founder of LGB Alliance UK, told the court she saw Ms Brooks stand up with a camera among attendees during a panel discussion.<\/p>\n

Referring to the complainant as male, Ms Harris said: \u201cIt was a deliberate, intimidatory move on his part and he would not stop. He was photographing anybody and everybody he could, and it felt intrusive and aggressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt as though he wanted to get everybody, to get all of us in his power through his camera, to say, \u2018I\u2019m the big man here, I can do what I want\u2019. That was the message. The disruption was complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Harris also told the court she knew Mr Linehan \u201cvery well\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Graham Linehan accuses British police of \u2018basically working for trans activists\u2019 during court appearanceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker put to Ms Harris that \u201cwhatever Brooks did, it didn\u2019t have a significant effect on the conference in terms of disruption\u201d, and Ms Harris replied \u201cyes, I think it did\u201d, adding: \u201cThe reason is these attacks are cumulative, they build and they build and they build.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court was told last month that Linehan and the activist met for the first time in person outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster on October 19th last year.<\/p>\n

While filming outside the venue, the activist approached Mr Linehan and asked: \u201cWhy do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?\u201d<\/p>\n

The transgender activist told the court that Mr Linehan had called them a \u201csissy porn-watching scumbag\u201d, a \u201cgroomer\u201d and a \u201cdisgusting incel\u201d, with the complainant responding, \u201cyou\u2019re the incel, you\u2019re divorced\u201d.<\/p>\n

A video played to the court appeared to show Linehan grabbing the complainant\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n

Asked why he threw the phone and did not return it, Linehan said: \u201cMy adrenaline was up, I was angry. I guess that feels like surrender, so I threw it away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t slam it, I just skimmed it. It was instinctive, as soon as I did it, I thought that was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving evidence last month, Mr Linehan said his \u201clife was made hell\u201d by trans activists, adding that the complainant was a \u201cyoung soldier in the trans activist army\u201d.<\/p>\n

The writer added: \u201cHe was misogynistic, he was abusive, he was snide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Faure Walker said Mr Linehan had posted about the activist \u201crelentlessly\u201d and that his posts were \u201coppressive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court previously heard that Mr Linehan had posted on social media about someone with the name \u201cTarquin\u201d, which Ms Faure Walker said was the defendant\u2019s \u201cderogatory term\u201d for the complainant.<\/p>\n

Mr Linehan, who appeared via video link on Wednesday, has denied one count of harassing the activist on social media between October 11th and October 27th last year, and a further charge of criminal damage of their mobile phone on October 19th last year.<\/p>\n

The trial continues. \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A transgender activist \u201ctook pictures of people\u2019s faces\u201d at a conference before a confrontation with Father Ted creator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,1460,61,60,99],"class_list":["post-110609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-graham-linehan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}