Graham Linehan in court to face trial accused of harassing trans woman

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has arrived at court to face trial, accused of harassing a transgender woman.

The 57-year-old has denied harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks on social media and a further charge of damaging her mobile phone in October.

The Bafta-winning writer, who also came up with TV sitcoms The IT Crowd and Black Books, has become a strong vocal critic of the trans rights movement in recent years.

His trial will begin at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Linehan, who created Father Ted in the 1990s with fellow Irish writer Arthur Mathews, said in a post on X in April that the allegations were related to an incident at the Battle of Ideas conference in London on 19 October 2024.

According to court documents, he is charged with harassing the alleged victim by posting abusive comments about her on social media between 11 and 27 October, and damaging her phone, to the value of £369, on the day of the conference.

In May, following a hearing in the case, Linehan said he had “lost a great deal” but “will not waver in my resolve”.

Before going into court on Thursday, the writer posed with a sign which said on one side “There’s no such thing as a ‘transgender child’”.

On the other, it said “Keep men out of women’s sports”.

On Monday, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in three posts he had made on X about trans issues.

Following the incident, Sir Keir Starmer ordered police to prioritise serious crimes, saying he had made his priorities for policing “clear”.

He said police time would be better spent “tackling anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, street crime, as well as reducing serious violent crimes like knife crime and violence against women”.

Opposition politicians, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, have criticised the arrest.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has backed his officers over the incident, but said the force should not be responsible for “policing toxic culture wars debates”.

Sir Mark said his officers are in an “impossible position” as he called for the law to be changed.

Several injured as bus crashes into pedestrians outside London’s Victoria station

Several pedestrians and passengers have been injured after a bus crashed outside a major London station.

A large emergency response involving police, the London Ambulance service and London’s Air Ambulance were called to Victoria Street next to London Victoria station after reports a route 24 bus mounted the pavement at around 8am.

Eyewitnesses said that the bus coming from the Westminster direction “was going really fast and came off the road.

“There were about 15, 16 people inside the bus. People were screaming – it was terrible,” Emit Suker told PA.

Another eyewitness said they “heard a massive crash, came outside and there was a woman on the floor with loads of people around her. Lots of people from the gym had run out to help her.”

The Metropolitan Police said a number of pedestrians and passengers on the bus had been injured and are in the process of being transported to hospital.

The driver of the bus was also taken to hospital and there are no fatalities reported currently, the force added in a statement.

Police have opened an investigation but no arrests have been made yet. The road remains closed. All vehicles are diverted at this time.

Aung San Suu Kyi facing heart problems as son shares fears for health

The son of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has issued a stark warning about her deteriorating health, urging the ruling military junta to grant her access to urgent medical care and calling on the international community to intervene.

Kim Aris told The Independent his 80-year-old mother – who has been imprisoned since the military coup in February 2021 – has been suffering from a worsening heart condition.

“It is deeply distressing to have heard my mother’s health has taken a turn for the worse,” he said. “She has had ongoing heart complications which have undoubtedly been exacerbated by the conditions under which she is being held and needs to see, and has asked to see a cardiologist from outside the prison. I have no way of knowing if this has been granted.”

Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and long-time symbol of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, has been held in solitary confinement for much of her detention. Her imprisonment is the subject of an Independent TV documentary, Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Last year three former UK foreign secretaries united to demand Ms Suu Kyi’s release, saying she was being held in “terrible conditions” on trumped-up charges and must be released.

Her son condemned the ruling State Administration Council’s treatment of her as “cruel and life-threatening,” and said the lack of transparency and compassion shown was “shocking and shattering.”

He has appealed to the global community to help secure his mother’s release, emphasising the urgency of her condition and the injustice of her continued imprisonment.

“She is aged 80 and needs care. Most importantly [she] needs to be freed and no longer a political prisoner for standing up for democracy and freedom for her country.

“I ask the world to help me find a path to freedom for her.”

In 2022 following a trial widely regarded as politically motivated, Ms Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison on a series of charges which international rights groups have widely condemned as a sham.

Following her sentencing, Amnesty International said the military junta had “turned the courts and prison system into a human rights inferno”.

Australian economist Sean Turnell, who served as Ms Suu Kyi’s economics adviser and who was also imprisoned shortly after the coup, told The Independent last year that conditions inside the Myanmar prisons were dire, with no protection from extreme heat or monsoon rains, while food quality was terrible and disease rife.

“She has a number of underlying health conditions that she has to deal with. The conditions that she’s being held under are quite awful,” he said.

Farage branded ‘free speech imposter’ in savage takedown by US Congressman

Nigel Farage was branded a “Putin-loving free speech imposter and Trump sycophant” by a US congressman on Wednesday who launched a severe critique of the Reform UK leader before the Briton gave evidence to a committee in Washington DC.

Democrat representative Jamie Raskin urged voters in Britain to “think twice” before voting for Mr Farage, accusing him of only protecting free speech he agrees with.

His comments came as Mr Farage, who has been heavily critical of free speech in the UK, with claims police are too heavy-handed with their arrests of people accused of hate speech, gave evidence on the subject to the US House judiciary committee.

Mr Raskin said: “To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving free speech imposter and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come on over to America and see what Trump and Maga are doing to destroy our freedom … You might think twice before you let Mr Farage ‘make Britain great again’.”

Giving evidence later in the session, Mr Farage hit back, saying: “You can say what you like, I don’t care.”

In his stinging attack, Mr Raskin argued that Donald Trump and Mr Farage “both claim they’re protectors of free speech, but they only want to protect speech they agree with”.

“He [Mr Farage] complains that racist threats against immigrants are not protected free speech, while he proposes to strip migrants, tourists and perhaps even visiting American congresspeople of any free speech rights at all.

“I had my own close encounter with that when Mr Farage and his team presented for more than an hour in a conversation we had about free speech. And after three minutes of talking, he cut me off and terminated the meeting because he didn’t like what I was saying.

“That’s the kind of free speech he’s committed to,” Mr Raskin said.

Mr Farage has proposed replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights – applying only to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK.

Mr Raskin argued that while there is a free speech crisis in America, “there’s no free speech crisis in Britain”.

He pointed out that “no one has stopped Mr Farage from parroting Putin’s absurd talking points”, a reference to the MP’s previous suggestion that Nato provoked the war in Ukraine, as well as pointing out that Sir Keir Starmer has not shut down news organisation GB News, where Mr Farage has his own show, which is critical of the government.

Giving evidence to the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, the Reform UK leader said: “I’m delighted to be acquainted with the charming Mr Raskin – delightful testimony you gave me earlier on with your speech.

“But hey, that’s fine. You can say what you like, I don’t care, because that’s what free speech is. In a sense, this has all been going wrong now for a couple of decades.”

Despite pitching themselves as champions of free speech, Reform UK has been criticised for impinging upon media freedom after the leader of a Reform council barred a local newspaper and website from interacting with the authority.

The ban imposed by Nottinghamshire County Council came after Nottinghamshire Live published a series of stories which council leader Mick Barton claimed “consistently misrepresented” the party.

Giving evidence, Mr Farage said he wanted to bring Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year, to Washington as “living proof of what can go wrong” with free speech, as well as sensationally comparing Britain to North Korea.

“It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into”, he said.

He also raised the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan for his comments on social media about transgender people, claiming that US tech chiefs could face arrest when entering the UK.

He said: “He [Linehan] put out some tweets months ago when he was in Arizona, and months later, he arrives at Heathrow airport to be met by five armed police.

“This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like. It is a potentially big threat to tech bosses, to many, many others.”

Mr Farage also warned that the UK’s Online Safety Act “will damage trade between our countries, threaten free speech across the West because of the knock-on rollout effects of this legislation from us or from the European Union”.

The Online Safety Act came into effect this year, providing a new set of laws that protect children and adults online from harmful content.

The act has given providers new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce the risk that their services are used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content when it does appear.

Liverpool parade crash suspect Paul Doyle denies dangerous driving

A former Royal Marine accused of ploughing his car into football fans at Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade, injuring 134 people, has denied 31 charges.

Paul Doyle, 53, appeared via video link from prison wearing a grey t-shirt on Thursday as he entered the not guilty pleas at Liverpool Crown Court to allegations relating to 29 victims, aged between six months and 77 years.

Merseyside Police said 134 people were injured when Mr Doyle allegedly drove his Ford Galaxy Titanium into crowds who were leaving after the city centre parade in May.

He was originally charged with seven offences but at a hearing last month a further 24 charges were added to the indictment.

Mr Doyle, of Croxteth, Liverpool, is charged with 18 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, nine counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, two counts of wounding with intent, one count of dangerous driving and one count of affray.

Hundreds of fans were leaving the waterfront victory parade when the incident occurred on Water Street just after 6pm on 26 May. Up to a million supporters had gathered to celebrate Liverpool’s 20th league title in a 10-mile parade in the city.

The suspect was arrested at the scene, where fire crews worked to rescue several people who were trapped under the car and dozens were taken to the hospital for treatment.

Days later, he was charged with two counts of wounding with intent, two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, two counts of attempted grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of dangerous driving.

It is alleged that Mr Doyle, who has been remanded in custody, drove dangerously on roads between his home address in Burghill Road and Water Street.

At his first court appearance, Liverpool Magistrates’ Court heard he was alleged to have “used his vehicle deliberately as a weapon”.

A provisional trial date has been set for 24 November, which could last three to four weeks.

More follows on this breaking news story…

Make the most of London this summer with this stadium experience

Whether you’re experiencing London for the first time or you’re a family with kids keen to create unforgettable memories during the holidays, a visit to this world-famous stadium in North London is a must.

After 90 years at their beloved Highbury stadium, Arsenal’s ambitions outgrew their original home and in 2006, the club opened the Emirates. With a seating capacity of over 60,000, the Emirates stadium is one of the largest in England. The sheer scale of this field of dreams must be seen to believed — and thanks to its easy-to-reach location, you can hop on a bus or train and get there in no time.

Once there, Arsenal’s award-winning tours open the doors to parts of the stadium that are usually off-limits to the public. For sightseers who prefer to go at their own pace and for those with little ones who tire easily, the club’s self-guided audio-visual tour is a great option.

Fans and families can take their time to soak in the atmosphere and stroll in the footsteps of footballing legends, imagining the roar of the crowd as you step into the players’ tunnel. Afterwards, feel the tension rise in the dugout and experience the best seats in the house in the directors’ box.

It’s a rare opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of a prestigious football club and explore normally restricted areas that also include the home and away dressing rooms, the media lounge and the exclusive members-only Diamond Club.

Available in seven languages on a state-of-the-art handheld device, the tour is narrated by Arsenal presenter David Frimpong, otherwise known as ‘Frimmy’, as well as featuring commentary from Arsenal legends Alex Scott and David Seaman.

As well as audio, the tour recreates the electric atmosphere of matchday using 360-degree augmented footage and includes brand new interactive elements. You can also take souvenir photos with iconic Arsenal trophies, including that of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

The Arsenal Legend Stadium Tour is a more bespoke alternative to the self-guided tour, where visitors can explore the stadium for 90 minutes alongside an Arsenal hero. Tour guides include Nigel Winterburn and Perry Groves, as well as former women’s captain Faye White MBE.

During the tour, the Arsenal legend will share memories, anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories from their time on the pitch, offering a unique insider’s perspective on life at the club. Expect plenty of humour, fascinating insights and a chance to hear back-room gossip straight from the legends themselves. There’s also a chance for a Q&A and photo opportunity with your Arsenal legend of choice.

Included with every tour ticket is entry into Arsenal’s interactive museum situated right next door to the stadium. Chart the club’s evolution from humble origins in Woolwich in 1886 to its modern powerhouse status with a global following of over 100 million fans.

The museum features two impressive video theatres, showing highlights from the club’s origins to the present day as well as twenty major displays of Arsenal’s proud history. Feast your eyes on silverware from the club’s most successful eras, Michael Thomas’s boots from Anfield 1989 and Jens Lehmann’s goalkeeper gloves worn for every league match of the unbeaten Invincibles season in 2003/4.

For lifelong Gooners, it’s a trip down memory lane. For families and tourists, it’s an eye-opening lesson in why football matters so much to the UK and is the perfect outing to experience London at its most authentic.

This content is brought to you by Living360, a digital lifestyle destination keeping you up to date with health and fitness, food and drink, homes and gardens, beauty, travel, finance trends and more.

Downton Abbey 3 is proof that this franchise simply must end

The Grand Finale is a farewell that’s intertwined with real, palpable grief. Last year, we lost Downton Abbey’s glorious pièce de résistance, Dame Maggie Smith, whose snake-bite wit as the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley was always the series’s purest pleasure. The Dowager Countess’s passing was the climactic event of the previous film – here, her portrait hangs reverently in the hall, watching over all with that sparkling gaze of hers.

Death has brought change to Downton Abbey. There’s money to be moved and managed, especially with the loss of Cora’s (Elizabeth McGovern) mother in America. It heralds the return of her brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) with some less than favourable news, alongside a new compatriot, the charismatic Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola).

Gus is really here, it seems, for Mary (Michelle Dockery), who’s been afflicted by the other major absence in this film: Matthew Goode as her second husband Henry Talbot, who delivered (and all power to him) roughly four lines of dialogue in the previous films, and has now been officially written out via divorce.

Yet creator Julian Fellowes’s script uses that bit of behind-the-scenes reshuffling to finally add to these films what has been desperately needed all along: genuine drama, as Mary is frantically shooed out of the home of Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), because the royal family is on their way and to share a room with a divorcée is still an unquestionable taboo in 1930.

There’s no escaping the fact that this film, once again, feels like two episodes of the TV series have been smashed together. For one of the hours, we deal with Sambrook and Mary’s flirtations, with a trip to Ascot where everyone gets to show off their race day garb in slow motion (Anna Robbins’s costume designs are as beautiful as expected, especially now Mary can swan around in the era’s bias-cut gowns). Giamatti and Nivola are a kick of adrenaline, capturing the fond bemusement of Americans gallivanting through the Old World. Then Nivola departs, and you can almost feel the credits roll, before the film shifts focus to the throwing of a party for Noël Coward (Arty Froushan).

Within all that, though, Fellowes finds some surprising moments of self-reflection for the franchise. We’re post-Wall Street crash but before the Second World War, and the entire film rides on the tension of a held breath. The house’s staff – Mr Carson (Jim Carter), Daisy (Sophie McShera), Phyllis (Raquel Cassidy), et al – are still jubilant upholders of the upstairs/downstairs divide, yet the word “socialism” is being whispered like it’s a new coiffure trend, and the fact that the decline of aristocracy can’t be kept locked out of Downton’s gates forever seems to be slowly dawning on Robert (Hugh Bonneville).

“The system doesn’t work if people hold on too long,” Tom (Allen Leech) warns him. It’s a nice bit of advice. And, considering this is now the third film to be presented as the show’s definitive conclusion, I sincerely hope Downton Abbey heeds it. This is about as graceful and fitting an endnote as you could hope for.

Dir: Simon Curtis. Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Paul Giamatti, Elizabeth McGovern, Penelope Wilton. Cert PG, 124 minutes.

‘Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale’ is in cinemas from 12 September

Xi is preparing to move against Taiwan – this is how it will happen

Make no mistake, today’s “victory” parade in Beijing was the most significant event since Xi Jinping came to power in China in 2012. It was both triumph and prelude, the triumph of military might and the prelude to using it.

The Chinese leader did not don a uniform. Instead, he favoured a plain Mao-style outfit (cut – of distinctive martial cut)plain outfit of distinctive martial cut, in contrast to most of his suited guests overlooking Tiananmen Square.

This was the new China at its most militant. Nuclear missiles, drones, advanced weapons of all kinds, thousands of regimented troops marching in tight precision. Much has been written about it as a display of pride. It is now time to consider intention.

The honoured guests were the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. With Xi, they made a trio of autocrats, unmistakably identified as the key players of the day by the Chinese media.

All three are hardened survivors. Two of them, Putin and Kim, are steeped in blood. In the Chinese system, there is no longer any need to eliminate opponents physically. But Xi did not hesitate to decimate the military, purging defence ministers, generals and staff officers. The dismissal of his foreign minister in a spy scandal seemed a mere afterthought by contrast.

One wonders whether, over their cups of tea, the Chinese and Russian leaders exchanged ideas about the necessity of purges. For Putin, the spectre of Yevgeny Prigozhin, rebel leader of the Wagner Group, who died in a mid-air explosion, has vanished from his calculations.

As for the ever-smiling Kim Jong Un, he lives with the knowledge that he executed his own uncle, Jang Song-thaek, after a reported tip-off from China that Jang was plotting against him. Kim’s unfortunate relative was tied to a scaffold in front of an audience of cadres and shredded by an anti-aircraft gun.

Nothing in Xi’s biography suggests that he enjoys cruelty or is personally ruthless. But he does wield power in a way that rivals Stalin in purpose. It would now be wise to assume that he is, in fact, going to move against Taiwan.

US intelligence and military officials have testified that Xi has instructed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready to “invade or coerce” Taiwan by 2027 – a date marking the centenary of the PLA’s founding. The date is not very far away. It must be taken seriously, because the autocrats may think there may never be a better time in world politics to strike.

Xi and his comrades have watched as Putin’s war in Ukraine turned from blitzkrieg to stalemate. But there is no higher consideration in the Chinese system than survival. China considers that Putin has won the war merely by avoiding defeat.

The third of the trio, Kim, is a veteran of two summits with US president Donald Trump, from which he emerged with both his nuclear arsenal and his power intact. If ever a group of leaders radiated confidence, it is these three.

For all their belligerence, Putin and Kim do not have military credentials; Kim was a nepo baby and Putin a civilian KGB operative. Xi does. His father was a commander under Chairman Mao who fought campaigns across north China in the country’s civil war.

Xi’s first job was in uniform as one of three private secretaries to the defence supremo of China. At a young age, he was privy to military secrets. This was a staff post, of course, for no Chinese general has fought a land campaign since 1979.

But throughout his rise up the civilian ranks of the party, Xi took care of the soldiers. While governing on the east coast, facing Taiwan, the record shows that he spent time visiting garrisons, improving conditions for the men, making sure families had good accommodation and boosting morale.

Now he reaps the rewards. Insecure emperors do not parade themselves in front of thousands of armed troops. I doubt that he has ever looked so solid in office.

So where does it go from here? China has absorbed multiple lessons from Russia. It has learned, for one thing, that it does not have to storm the beaches of Taiwan.

“A combined operation involving an opposed landing [is] one of the most difficult and hazardous operations of war,” as Winston Churchill wrote. Xi knows the quote: his father had read Churchill’s memoir. Putin has shown that he does not have to do it that way.

Chinese tactics against Taiwan could be a hybrid of the Crimea and the dash to Kiev. Perhaps Trump has studied the German strategist Carl von Clausewitz and his theory of the concentration of maximum force at a decisive point. Xi and his generals know it by heart.

In this scenario, China could command the seas by defeating an American force with one kinetic shock, securing control of the strait between Taiwan and the mainland. It could proclaim blockades, maritime quarantines, compulsory shipping lanes and aviation exclusion zones. Its new weapons could shatter American and Allied air and naval supremacy.

Then there is what Chairman Mao called the “magic weapon” of propaganda and appeals to the greater Chinese nation. There is a ceaseless campaign of infiltration and cyberwar to persuade the Taiwanese that resistance is futile and destiny beckons and unity is inevitable. Chinese state outlets push narratives that the US cannot be trusted to defend Taiwan, emphasising economic benefits of closer ties with Beijing. As Xi said at the parade, China is “unstoppable”.

The trio of autocrats see this as part of a new world order to replace the old world made after 1945. They explicitly used the Victory Parade to state an “authentic history” of the time and to promote, of all things, the United Nations as their instrument of change.

The Chinese foreign ministry unveiled three faults in the UN, first, “serious underrepresentation of the Global South”, second, “erosion of authoritativeness” and, third, an “urgent need for greater effectiveness”. All bland, who could possibly object?

Then it added: “Governance gaps exist in new frontiers such as artificial intelligence (AI), cyberspace and outer space.” The solution: “China proposes the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) to promote the building of a more just and equitable global governance system and work together for a community with a shared future for humanity.”

Naturally, it promised “extensive consultation and joint contribution” suitable for China’s role as “a staunch builder of world peace, contributor to global development, (and) defender of the international order.”

Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un may not seem the likeliest people to run a consultation exercise to make the world a kinder place through artificial intelligence and space travel. “Global Governance” on their terms is an offer that nobody is meant to refuse. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Michael Sheridan is author of The Red Emperor: Xi Jinping and his New China, out now in paperback from Headline Press at £12.99