The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has ordered the Metropolitan Police to reexamine Graham Linehan’s complaints about his arrest over tweeets at London’s Heathrow Airport in September 2025.
The IOPC found that the Met’s own review of the case was "not reasonable and proportionate" – and ordered the force to take another look at the handling of the case.
The IOPC’s finding is as follows: "If the force cannot establish sound rationale concerning the legality of the arrest, the application of Article 10 and the reasons justifying bail conditions, then there may be sufficient evidence pointing towards a conclusion that Mr Linehan received unfair treatment (including in interview) due to his potential protected characteristic."
Article 10 is the European Convention on Human Rights’ free expression provision, while the "potential protected characteristic" refers to Linehan’s gender-critical views.
The Met had already apologized, paid Linehan £25,000 ($33,062) in compensation, and admitted that detaining him was unacceptable – but maintained that the arrest was lawful, and blamed an inexperienced trainee detective and poor supervision.
It sounds like something out of a dystopian movie script: a man is arrested at an airport by armed officers (unusual for the UK), thrown in a cell for 12 hours, all over three posts on X that happened to express a controversial opinion, and six months prior.
The Met had been tipped off by a transgender former police officer, who said the posts were inciting violence against transgender people.
He was held for 12 hours, and his bail conditions banned him from posting on X.
The posts included one that said, "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Another post showed a trans rights demonstration with the caption, "A photo you can smell." Then: "I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. Fuck ’em."
Linehan explained that the offense of inciting violence against transgender people does not even exist under the Public Order Act 1986.
Nevertheless, he was arrested "like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online," he said at the time.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case in October 2025, and no charges were ever filed.
The Met has conducted its own review of the case and the way it was handled, and found that the investigation was "flawed and misunderstood" and that the officers involved were wrong to focus on the anti-transgender aspect of the posts, instead of the alleged incitement to violence.
The review said that the investigation was "adversely affected" by the inexperience of the trainee detective in charge of the case, who was also overworked, and that there had been poor supervision.
Inspector Matt Hume of the Met’s professional standards directorate said, "I accept that the service provided was not acceptable and recognise the distress and impact this matter has caused Mr Linehan."
Hume also said that "at times, both the investigation and arrest phases lacked the diligence one would expect from the MPS."
No officer was disciplined over the case, with the sanction being "learning through reflection."
The IOPC said that it was up to the courts to decide whether the arrest was lawful, but that the Met had failed to give a satisfactory explanation for detaining Linehan.
The Met has now said, "We will be reviewing the IOPC’s decision and reopening the complaint."
As for Linehan, he is not buying the Met’s apology, saying, "The only possible reason the Met acted in the extreme way they did was political bias. That the Met sought to cover this up is yet more evidence of a two-tier approach to the policing of this debate."
Toby Young, Lord Young of Acton, of the Free Speech Union, which supported Linehan’s challenge, said, "This finding by the IOPC is very welcome. I hope it means that in future the police will take freedom-of-expression rights into consideration before arresting someone for a tweet."
We previously reported that the US State Department had condemned the arrest, saying, "This speech is neither ‘threat’ nor ‘violence’ but the basis for democratic governance in free societies."
A year on, the Met has apologized for the way it handled the case, but not for making the arrest.
When police treat an opinion as a threat, the process is the punishment. And everyone else posting online is left to wonder if their next post will result in a welcome party at the arrivals gate.
