Met Police Ordered to Reopen Graham Linehan Case

You probably remember the arrest of comedian Graham Linehan at Heathrow airport in London last year. Linehan was met at the airport by five armed police officers and then questioned over a handful of tweets he'd posted critical of trans people. His treatment by the police caused a panic attack and spike in his blood pressure which resulted in him being taken to the hospital.

The reaction to the arrest was so negative that within days Prime Minister Keir Starmer was making it clear he didn't support arrest. Then the Chief of the Metropolitan Police said "I don't believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position." But he also defended the actions of the officers saying they, "had reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed."

But not long after, the Met announced that police would no longer investigate any non-crime hate incidents. In other words, no more arrests for speech. Then an internal investigation concluded that the arrest had been a mistake and Linehan was offered an apology and a payment of £25,000.

A Met spokesperson said on Thursday: “We recognise the considerable distress caused to Mr Linehan, and have offered our sincere apologies...

In a letter to Linehan, the force accepted there had been “shortcomings in the investigation, the arrest and the imposition of bail conditions”, the Times reported.

A settlement was reached after a civil claim.

But it turns out that was not the end of it. Linehan also filed a complaint with the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) about his arrest and today that body ordered the Met to reopen their investigation into how Linehan was treated.

After an internal review of the case, Scotland Yard admitted his detention had been unacceptable and issued an unreserved apology. However, no officers were disciplined.

The IOPC has concluded that the Met’s review did not go far enough, and described its findings as “not reasonable and proportionate”.

The Met has been ordered to reinvestigate Mr Linehan’s complaints after the IOPC said he may have been unfairly treated because of his gender-critical views.

It pointed to a legal ruling that found anti-trans views could be considered to be a “protected characteristic”.

In the IOPC findings, seen by The Telegraph, the watchdog said if “the force cannot establish sound rationale concerning the legality of the arrest, the application of Article 10 and the reasons justifying bail conditions, then there may be sufficient evidence pointing towards a conclusion that Mr Linehan received unfair treatment (including in interview) due to his potential protected characteristic”.

I don't believe there's any doubt that Linehan's treatment by the police had everything to do with the alleged victims of his speech. Indeed, the Met's own investigation suggested the trainee detective who led the investigation focused on the wrong things.

Scotland Yard’s review of the case concluded that while the arrest was lawful, aspects of the investigation were “flawed and misunderstood”.

It found that the officers had wrongly focused on the anti-transgender element of the remarks, rather than the alleged incitement to violence...

But the IOPC said the Met’s findings did not sufficiently address Mr Linehan’s complaints and needed to be looked at again.

Linehan himself seems to agree with the IOPC. "The only possible reason the Met acted in the extreme way they did was political bias," he said. He added, "That the Met sought to cover this up is yet more evidence of a two-tier approach to the policing of this debate."

This was a serious screw up and an obvious one. It shouldn't require a lot of training for someone to know that an armed arrest isn't necessary over a few intemperate tweets. Whoever approved the arrest should be fired or at least demoted. Mistakes happen but so do consequences.

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