{"id":683632,"date":"2026-07-10T04:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/683632\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T04:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:39:12","slug":"father-ted-writer-graham-linehan-receives-settlement-from-met-over-arrest-for-social-media-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/683632\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Ted writer Graham Linehan receives settlement from Met over arrest for social media posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graham Linehan has been awarded a settlement from the Metropolitan Police over a civil claim against the force after he was arrested for social media posts about transgender issues.<\/p>\n

The Irish comedy writer was arrested by police at Heathrow Airport, after flying in from Arizona in September on suspicion of inciting violence over three posts he made on the social media platform X.<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old announced in October that the investigation into his posts had been dropped but said he intended to \u201chold the police accountable\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is understood that a settlement has been reached in a civil claim, and four officers have received learning through reflection, a non-disciplinary process to resolve low-level performance issues.<\/p>\n

According to reports, Linehan received \u00a325,000 in the settlement.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Met said: \u201cWe recognise the considerable distress caused to Mr Linehan, and have offered our sincere apologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case prompted a significant change, which means the Met no longer investigates non-crime hate incidents.<\/p>\n

“We believe this will provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The force apologised to Linehan in May.<\/p>\n

Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter<\/a> for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning. <\/p>\n

Conservative politicians and Harry Potter author JK Rowling had criticised Linehan\u2019s controversial arrest.<\/p>\n

He was cleared of harassing transgender campaigner Sophia Brooks with a series of social media posts before and after an incident outside the Battle Of Ideas conference in Westminster on October 19, 2024.<\/p>\n

He posted on X at the time he was cleared: \u201cWith the aid of the Free Speech Union, I still aim to hold the police accountable for what is only the latest attempt to silence and suppress gender-critical voices on behalf of dangerous and disturbed men.\u201d<\/p>\n

A conviction for damaging their mobile phone was also overturned on appeal.<\/p>\n

Reporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby<\/a> to revisit their remarkable on-the-day reports of the defining events of the modern age. Listen to the episodes below… <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graham Linehan has been awarded a settlement from the Metropolitan Police over a civil claim against the force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-683632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}