TV Comedy writer and sitcom creator Graham Linehan had to be checked in at the hospital after a harrowing ordeal in which he was arrested and questioned for hours at London Heathrow airport.
His crime? Three tweets criticizing transgenderism.
On his Substack, Linehan described the ordeal:
'The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two — five,' he wrote. 'They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets [posts].'
Of particular interest to the police were these three posts from April:
Read how Linehan's interrogation went:
...during the interview itself, the tone shifted. The officer conducting it asked about each of the terrible tweets in turn, with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like... oh, I dunno-crime? I explained that the 'punch' tweet was a serious point made with a joke. 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, the bollocks being closer to punch level for a woman defending her rights and certainly not a call to violence. (Not one of my best as one of the female officers said 'We're not THAT small').
He mentioned 'trans people'. I asked him what he meant by the phrase. 'People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.' I said 'Assigned at birth? Our sex isn't assigned.' He called it semantics, I told him he was using activist language.
The situation was so stressful, Linehan had to be checked into a hospital for blood pressure that was approaching "stroke territory."
A spokesman with the MET Police Gestapo gave this statement:
On Monday, September 1 at 1pm officers arrested a man at Heathrow Airport after he arrived on an inbound American Airlines flight. The man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence. This is in relation to posts on X. After being taken to police custody, officers became concerned for his health and he was taken to hospital. His condition is neither life-threatening nor life-changing. He has now been bailed pending further investigation.
He was released on bail, but on one condition: He is not allowed to post on X.
Many on the internet, including JK Rowling, reacted to the news:
In spite of all this, here's the prime minister claiming the nation has "free speech."
How much longer will Brits put up with this?
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