Met Police apologises to Linehan over trans row arrest

The Metropolitan Police has apologised to Graham Linehan for its ‘unacceptable’ investigation into his social media comments.

Last September, the writer and comedian was arrested by five armed police officers for a social media post claimed to be ‘stirring up hatred against trans-identifying men’.

The charges were later dropped, and now, following a five-month internal investigation, the police force has admitted that it had wrongly focused on the transgender aspect of the case, rather than the alleged incitement to violence.

Failure

In a document seen by The Daily Telegraph, Inspector Matt Hume of the Met’s directorate of professional standards stated: “I accept that the service provided was not acceptable and recognise the distress and impact this matter has caused Mr Linehan.”

Although the arrest was lawful, Hume noted that “both the investigation and arrest phases lacked the diligence one would expect” from the police force.

He concluded: “I apologise to Mr Linehan for the shortcomings in this investigation. The Met Police remains committed to lawful, proportionate policing and to learning from failings when they arise.”

‘Unacceptable interference’

Lord Young of Acton, founder and General Secretary of the Free Speech Union (FSU) which supported Linehan, said: “The FSU welcomes this apology and the acknowledgement that the arrest and detention of Graham Linehan was an unacceptable interference in his right to free speech.

“We look forward to working with the Met Police and other police services to ensure their response to complaints about social media posts in future has due regard to freedom of expression.”

Soon after dropping Linehan’s charges last year, the Metropolitan Police announced that it would no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents following the “concern around this case”.

The police force stated: “The Commissioner has been clear he doesn’t believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates, with current laws and rules on inciting violence online leaving them in an impossible position.”