Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been charged with criminal damage and harassment without violence offences. The 56-year-old is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court over the accusations next month.
It is understood they relate to an alleged incident at a festival, named Battle of Ideas, on October 19, 2024. Mr Linehan today issued a statement claiming: “This is part of a long history of the police acting as a goon squad for trans rights activists.”
As well as Father Ted, Mr Linehan also wrote hit TV shows The IT Crowd and Black Books. But he has become best known as a vocal critic of the trans-rights movement in recent years. He has previously claimed that his career and marriage have been destroyed over his gender-critical views.
Linehan, who was born in Dublin and survived cancer in 2018, has also said he had lost his career, family and friends after getting caught up in the trans debate.
He has won a lifetime achievement award and penned a memoir, Tough Crowd: How I Made and Lost a Career in Comedy, which was published in October 2023 and reached number ten on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
A CPS spokesperson said: “Graham Linehan is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court for a first hearing to face charges of harassment without violence and criminal damage on 12 May.
Has it come to this in the UK? Despite the recent supreme court ruling that women are women, and a stretched police force, the authorities have the time, resource and motivation to charge someone like Graham Linehan with what amounts to a difference of opinion.
