Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, 57, has had his conviction for damaging the mobile phone of transgender activist Sophia Brooks overturned following an appeal hearing at Southwark Crown Court.

He was previously found guilty of damaging the mobile phone belonging to Ms Brooks during a dispute outside a conference outside the Battle Of Ideas conference in Westminster on October 19 2024. Ms Brooks, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, told an appeal hearing on Friday that she approached Linehan and began filming him because she wanted "an apology and explanation" after Linehan – a prominent anti-transgender advocate – labelled her a "domestic terrorist" on social media. "I wanted a response. I wanted to know why he thought it was acceptable to call teenagers a domestic terrorist, and to shame him into an apology," Ms Brooks told Southwark Crown Court from the witness box.

While filming outside the venue, the activist approached Mr Linehan and asked: “Why do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?” On the footage, Mr Linehan can be heard calling Ms Brooks a “sissy porn-watching scumbag,” a “groomer” and a “disgusting incel”, with the complainant responding: “You’re the incel, you’re divorced.”

Linehan's lawyer, Sarah Vine KC, cross-examining Ms Brooks, put it to the complainant that her intention in approaching and filming Mr Linehan was to "provoke a reaction". Ms Brooks rejected this, stating: "I wanted to shame him, not upset him, and not in the hope of a reaction – in the hope of an apology or an explanation, or both."

Linehan’s lawyer told the judge the complainant was “determined” to see Mr Linehan convicted as part of a “campaign” against the comedy writer for his anti-transgender activism. The complainant, Ms Vine said, “is seeking to achieve a victory against Mr Linehan because he is a high-profile opponent, by misusing the justice system”.

The judge, who was assisted in the proceedings by two magistrates, said: “Having considered all the evidence before us, we cannot be sure that the damage to the complainant’s phone was caused by Mr Linehan on the evening of the 19th of October 2024. We therefore found Mr Linehan not guilty of the offence.”

Mr Linehan was cleared by a judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court last November of harassing Ms Brooks with a series of social media posts before and after the incident. But he was convicted by District Judge Briony Clarke of criminal damage over his actions with the mobile phone.