Graham Linehan has been found guilty of damaging trans activist Sonia Brooks’ phone while she was a teenager. However, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court ruled that his social media posts about Brooks did not amount to harassment.

The Father Ted writer, who has attracted criticism for sharing anti-trans posts online, flew in from Arizona for yesterday’s court date.

As the BBC reports, Graham Linehan denied harassing Brooks online between October 11 and 27 last year. He also denied damaging her phone outside the Battle of Ideas, a conference in London, in 2024.

District Judge Briony Clark found that Linehan took the phone and damaged it because he was “angry and fed up”, and not because he was “using reasonable force to prevent a crime”.

Linehan told the court that he knocked the phone out of Brooks’ hand as a “reflex response”, claiming that trans activists have made his life “hell”.

Linehan has been fined £500 and has been ordered to pay costs of £650, in addition to a statutory surcharge of £200.

While he was convicted of damaging Brooks’ phone, District Judge Briony Clark ruled that his online posts did not qualify as criminal harassment. She did, however, describe the content as “unattractive, annoying and irritating” and “deeply unpleasant and unnecessary”.

In his posts about Brooks on X, Linehan referred to her using her deadname and called her a “sociopath”, a “groomer”, a “psycho” and a “domestic terrorist”. At the time of such comments, Brooks was only a teenager.

In a statement shared online, Brooks said “justice has been served” after Linehan was found guilty of criminal damage.

Brooks added that those who have shown Linehan support, including journalists and senior politicians, should “hold their heads in shame” and said his actions should “never be justified”.

“Some people are just different, get over it,” she added.