Authorities arrested Graham Linehan, the creative mind behind The IT Crowd and Father Ted, at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday. He had just landed on an American Airlines flight when five armed police officers were reportedly waiting to escort him into custody over social media posts from earlier this year.
“The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting,” Linehan wrote on his Substack. “Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.”
The charges? Authorities alleged that certain tweets he posted about transgender people amounted to “inciting violence.”
Here are the posts that got Linehan arrested:
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.
— Graham Linehan 🎗️ (@Glinner) April 20, 2025
A photo you can smell pic.twitter.com/uWB2fCqQ6i
— Graham Linehan 🎗️ (@Glinner) April 19, 2025
And finally this one (language warning):
I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F**k em
— Graham Linehan 🎗️ (@Glinner) April 19, 2025
“When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Don’t tell me! You’ve been sent by trans activists.’” The officers didn’t respond. Most seemed baffled, “entirely professional and even kind, but most had absolutely no idea what any of this was about.”
Even so, Linehan got what he calls “small mercies.” “They even arranged for a van to meet me on the tarmac so I didn’t have to be perp-walked through the airport like a terrorist.” Once at the station, his possessions were confiscated and he was locked in a green-tiled cell. After a sleepless flight, he actually managed a nap.
The questioning was surreal. Every tweet was a criminal offense. On one, he defended himself: “Men who enter women’s spaces ARE abusers and they need to be challenged every time. The ‘punch in the bollocks’ bit was about the height difference between men and women … and certainly not a call to violence.” One female officer quipped, “We’re not THAT small.”
When the conversation turned to “trans people,” Linehan pushed back. The officer defined them as “people who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.” Linehan shot back: “Assigned at birth? Our sex isn’t assigned. … You’re using activist language. The damage Stonewall has done to the UK police force will take years to mend.”
The ordeal almost killed him.
A nurse found his blood pressure over 200—“stroke territory.” He was taken to a hospital for observation. Linehan says it wasn’t just travel stress but “eight years being targeted by trans activists working in tandem with police in a dedicated, persistent harassment campaign because I refuse to believe that lesbians have c***s.”
He admits some officers were decent, “some were even Father Ted fans,” but civility can’t hide the bigger problem. “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.”
His bail condition is simple but chilling: “I am not to go on Twitter.” Linehan’s conclusion is stark: “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.”
Linehan’s arrest shows just how far the UK has fallen. Social media posts challenging the trans narrative led to the authorities treating a famed comedy writer as a criminal, putting his health at risk, and silencing his voice. Free speech, women’s rights, and common sense are now being crushed to appease a powerful, entitled, mentally ill minority.
Related: J.K. Rowling Completely Obliterated Her Critics With One Powerful Post
“What the f**k has the UK become?” asked Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in response to Linehan’s arrest. “This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable.”
Graham Linehan’s ordeal proves freedom is under siege. British authorities arrested, banned, and hospitalized him simply for challenging the radical narrative. PJ Media keeps fighting when the establishment censors dissent. Join PJ Media VIP for exclusive content and ad-free browsing, and be a part of an awesome community of liberty lovers. Use promo code FIGHT for 60% off. Back uncompromising journalism that values liberty — don’t let free speech die!
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