Graham Linehan, the Irish writer best known for Father Ted and The IT Crowd, says police have now confirmed he will face no further action following his controversial arrest at Heathrow Airport last month.
The 57-year-old comedy creator had been arrested by armed officers after landing in London from Arizona, accused of using social media to incite violence, a claim now dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Linehan’s arrest became a flashpoint in a growing concern over the decline of free speech in modern Britain.
What might have been a brief police encounter instead exposed a deeper problem: the creeping normality of criminal investigations into words rather than actions.
The image of an airport surrounded by armed officers confronting a comedy writer for tweets struck many as absurd, even dystopian.
In a post on X, Linehan announced that “the police have informed my lawyers that I face no further action in respect of the arrest at Heathrow in September,” adding that “after a successful hearing to get my bail conditions lifted (one which the police officer in charge of the case didn’t even bother to attend) the Crown Prosecution Service has dropped the case.”
Hellbound and Down 