The Free Speech Union
📣🚨 METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFER UNRESERVED APOLOGY TO GRAHAM LINEHAN AND PAY HIM £25,000 The Metropolitan Police have at long last offered an unreserved apology to Graham Linehan and paid him £25,000. Last September, the Irish comedian and co-creator of Father Ted was arrested by five armed police officers as he landed at Heathrow Airport. His crime? Three gender-critical posts on X. He was arrested, taken to a police station and questioned for several hours. In the early hours of the following morning, he was rushed to hospital after his blood pressure rose to dangerously high levels. The Free Speech Union is proud to have supported Graham in taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police for wrongful arrest and breaches of his free speech rights. General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young, has said: “I’m beginning to lose count of the number of cases we’ve fought in which the police have arrested someone for a tweet, decided to take no further action and then had to pay them substantial compensation for wrongful arrest. “At some point you’d think the penny would drop: police our streets, not our tweets.” While we welcome the Metropolitan Police’s apology and compensation payout to @Glinner, this should never have happened in the first place. It is high time the police focused on our streets, not our tweets. Watch Graham’s reaction below 👇