Graham Linehan was acquitted of harassing a trans activist but found guilty of damaging a phone Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan, co-founder of Father Ted, was acquitted of harassing a trans activist on social media, but found guilty of damaging his mobile phone outside a conference in London last year.

The 57-year-old traveled from Arizona to appear in person at Westminster District Court on Tuesday, where the sentence was pronounced.

Linehan has denied harassing Sophia Brooks on social media between October 11 and 27, 2024, and a charge of criminally damaging her mobile phone on October 19 last year outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster.

Judge Clark fined Linehan £500 and ordered him to pay costs of £650 and a legal surcharge of £200. Linehan’s lawyer, Sarah Fine KC, asked for him to be given 28 days to pay the full amount.

The trial heard that Brooks began taking photographs of delegates at the event during a speech by Fiona McNenna, campaigns director at Sex Matters, a British gender-critical campaign group.

Outside the event, the activist asked Linehan: “Why do you think it’s okay to call teenagers domestic terrorists?”

In response, the court heard Linehan described Brooks as a “porn-watching sissy”, a “nanny” and a “disgusting person”, with the complainant responding: “You’re a bitch, you’re a divorcee.”

The judge found that Linehan took Brooks’ phone because he was “angry and fed up”, and damaged it by throwing it to the ground. She said that although the offense was not aggravated by the fact that the complainant was transgender, he was 17 at the time.

She ruled that she was “unsure by criminal standards” that Linehan had shown hostility on the basis that the complainant was transgender. She added that she did not find that the complainant was “as upset or upset” as he portrayed himself.

Prosecutor Julia Fore-Walker told the court that Linehan wrote “repeated, offensive and unreasonable” social media posts about Brooks, whom he referred to as Tarquin.

“The background to this case involves what I would describe as provocative behavior by the complainant, raising allegations in the service of scoring political points generally,” Fine said.

It added that the costs incurred by Linehan “were enormous” and resulted from a “temporary lapse of control” that led to behavior that “cannot be described as above suspicion”.

The comedian, who has posted strong views on gender issues, said his “life was made hell” by trans activists, adding that the complainant was “a young soldier in the army of trans activists”.

The writer added: “He was a misogynist, he was abusive, he was a vile. He relied on anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.”

He told reporters outside court that he hoped the acquittal would mean that “people in the future will not be subjected to these kinds of tactics.”