Linehan was trying to get trans activist to ‘stop pushing camera in his face’

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan damaged the phone of a transgender activist as he tried to stop a camera being pushed in his face, a court has heard.

The 57-year-old Irish comedy writer is on trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, accused of harassing trans woman Sophia Brooks and damaging the phone outside a conference in Westminster on October 19 last year.

Julie Bindel, a journalist and feminist campaigner who attended the Battle of Ideas event, told the trial she saw the confrontation.

“I noticed Graham there… and noticed Brooks was walking very close to him – which is Brooks’ MO (modus operandi) – waving the phone in front of him,” Ms Bindel said.

“It’s very menacing, that whole ‘getting in your face’ thing, and it was a public event, it’s not that it was a private secret event where Brooks would need proof that we were there.

“Graham was trying to get him to stop pushing the camera in his face and I heard him say several times, use words like ‘stop’ or ‘go away’.

“I saw something which I could describe as a sweeping motion, and then the phone was flying.

“Brooks was in his face and he was trying repeatedly to get him out of his face and to stop.”

Ms Bindel was asked about Linehan’s demeanour as he came out of the Battle of Ideas event.

The court was shown footage of the trans activist asking why the comedy writer had referred to teenagers as “domestic terrorists”, and in response he called the complainant an “incel” and a “groomer”.

Ms Bindel told Linehan’s harassment trial: “He had been his usual friendly self and very quickly he appeared like a man who had had enough. He just wanted them to go away.”

She added that the activist also shouted her name and followed her in the streets after the conference, adding: “I felt scared of him.”

The transgender activist “took pictures of people’s faces” at the conference before the confrontation with Linehan, the court heard earlier on Wednesday.

Giving evidence for the defence, Katherine Harris, co-founder of LGB Alliance UK, told the court she saw the complainant stand up with a camera among attendees during a panel discussion.

Referring to the complainant as male, Ms Harris said: “It 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.

“It felt as though he wanted to get everybody, to get all of us in his power through his camera, to say, ‘I’m the big man here, I can do what I want’. That was the message. The disruption was complete.”

Ms Harris also told the court she knew Linehan “very well”.

Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters, told the trial she was giving a talk at the Battle of Ideas event when a commotion began in the audience.

She said someone stood up and started taking photos before shuffling into the aisle, causing the audience to turn to see what was happening.

“The whole thing became a massive distraction,” Ms McAnena said.

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker put to Ms Harris that “whatever Brooks did, it didn’t have a significant effect on the conference in terms of disruption”, and Ms Harris replied: “Yes, I think it did,” adding: “The reason is these attacks are cumulative, they build and they build and they build.”

The court was told last month that Linehan and the activist met for the first time in person outside the conference on October 19 last year.

While filming outside the venue, the activist approached Linehan and asked: “Why do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?”

The transgender activist told the court that Linehan had called them a “sissy porn-watching scumbag”, a “groomer” and a “disgusting incel”, with the complainant responding: “You’re the incel, you’re divorced.”

A video played to the court appeared to show Linehan grabbing the complainant’s phone.

Asked why he threw the phone and did not return it, Linehan said: “My adrenaline was up, I was angry. I guess that feels like surrender, so I threw it away.

“I didn’t slam it, I just skimmed it. It was instinctive – as soon as I did it, I thought that was a mistake.”

Giving evidence last month, Linehan said his “life was made hell” by trans activists, adding that the complainant was a “young soldier in the trans activist army”.

The writer added: “He was misogynistic, he was abusive, he was snide.

“He depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.”

Ms Faure Walker said Linehan had posted about the activist “relentlessly” and that his posts were “oppressive”.

The court previously heard that Linehan had posted on social media about someone with the name “Tarquin”, which Ms Faure Walker said was the defendant’s “derogatory term” for the complainant.

Ms Faure Walker said in her closing speech: “His views on trans activists in general is clear from his evidence: in cross-examination, he said he hated them.

“The social media posts by Mr Linehan were rather repeated, abusive, unreasonable, and to a very large audience.”

In her closing remarks, Linehan’s lawyer, Sarah Vine KC, said the complainant had followed “a course of conduct designed both to provoke and to harass Mr Linehan”.

She told the trial that there is “a doubt, and a reasonable one at that”, whether marks on the complainant’s phone were caused by Linehan’s actions.

Ms Vine also submitted that the Father Ted co-creator’s conduct had not crossed the appropriate legal threshold to be counted as harassment.

Linehan, who appeared by videolink on Wednesday, has denied harassing the activist on social media between October 11 and October 27 last year, and a charge of criminal damage of their mobile phone on October 19 last year.

District Judge Briony Clarke said the prosecution would address the complainant according to their “affirmed gender name”, while the defendant’s position was that the “complainant is male”.

The judge said she will give her judgment on November 25.