Graham Linehan, 57, is better known as the co-creator of the smash hit television Father Ted. He is now under the most serious legal fire of his life from allegations of harassment levied against him by 17 year-old transgender activist Sophia Brooks. The most recent case zeroes in on the allegations against Linehan. He is claimed to have orchestrated a campaign of online harassment directed at Brooks between October 11 and October 27 last year. He’s since denied that harassment charge. He faces a second criminal damage charge related to an alleged attack on Brooks’s cell phone on October 19.
The court documents paint an alarming picture of the increasingly tense relationship between Linehan and Brooks. He is accused of having posted a number of intimidating and derogatory remarks about her in social media. In his written testimony, Linehan referred to Brooks as Tarquin. From our vantage point, this name selection appears purposely calculated to erase her existence. He alleges that Brooks committed harassment by following him too closely and recording him. Despite his best efforts to not rise to her provocations, in the moment he operated on instinct when he snatched her phone and threw it down.
In her argument, prosecutor Julia Faure Walker maintained that Linehan’s social media accounts went beyond bothersome to form what was “oppressive and unacceptable.” Over the course of this case, the court has witnessed Linehan referring to Brooks as a “deeply disturbed sociopath” and a “sissy porn-watching scumbag.” He further claimed that she was responsible for “countless episodes of harassment of women and gay men both online and off.”
Even before he stepped foot in the courtroom, Linehan was unafraid to flaunt his convictions. His sandwich board sign proclaimed, “There’s no such thing as a ‘transgender child.’ ” Keep men out of women’s sports. This gesture is typical of his polemical approach to transgender rights that has garnered lots of headlines and media coverage.
Brooks has laid out a very reasonable expectation of how Linehan’s statements could affect the safety and professional reputation of an artist. She expressed the enormous pain his public comments brought her. I was being personally tagged as a deeply disturbed sociopath by one of the relatively famous with 500,000 plus followers,” she recalled. Mr. Linehan’s nephew post. Anyone in the world could see it and it could do me tremendous damage.”
The trial is still ongoing as each side makes their case. The result is anyone’s guess. Yet, the legal skirmishes expose a deeper civil divide within American society regarding gender identity and the treatment of transgender people.