Armed police arrested Graham Linehan at Heathrow over three posts on X, held him in a cell for 12 hours and banned him from tweeting as a bail condition. Prosecutors dropped the case. The Met then apologized, paid him £25,000 and blamed an overworked trainee detective. Nobody was disciplined. The punishment for the officers was “learning through reflection.”
Now the police watchdog has ruled that the Met’s own review of the arrest was not reasonable or proportionate. It says that if the force cannot justify the arrest, the bail conditions or its treatment of free expression, Linehan may have been treated unfairly because of his views.
The Met has apologized for everything except the arrest. Maybe it needs to try again.
https://reclaimthenet.org/iopc-orders-met-review-graham-linehan-arrest
reclaimthenet / Reclaim The Net
npub1uk…qs4c6
2026-10-16 22:50:10 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1ukq58aunujlcqkjd7mxuq2y7x54neuy20vlx474038w5j7ls7jnq3qs4c6Published at
2026-10-16 22:50:10 UTCEvent JSON
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