A transgender activist “took pictures of people’s faces” before a confrontation with comedy writer Graham Linehan, jurors have heard.
Linehan, 57, is on trial at Westminster Magistrates Court in London.
The Father Ted co-creator is accused of harassing trans woman Sophia Brooks and damaging her mobile phone outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster on 19 October 2024.
District Judge Briony Clarke said that the prosecution would address Ms Brooks according to her “affirmed gender name”, while saying that the defendant’s position is that the “complainant is male”.
Giving evidence for the defence on Wednesday, Katherine Harris, the co-founder of LGB Alliance UK, told the court she saw Ms Brooks stand up with a camera during a panel discussion.
Referring to Ms Brooks as male, Ms Harris said: “It was a deliberate, intimidatory move on his part and he would not stop. He was photographing anybody and everybody he could, and it felt intrusive and aggressive.
“It felt as though he wanted to get everybody, to get all of us in his power through his camera, to say, ‘I’m the big man here, I can do what I want’. That was the message. The disruption was complete.”
Ms Harris also told the court she knew Linehan “very well”.
Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker put to Ms Harris that “whatever Brooks did, it didn’t have a significant effect on the conference in terms of disruption”, and Ms Harris replied “yes, I think it did”, adding: “The reason is these attacks are cumulative, they build and they build and they build.”
The court was told in September that Linehan and Ms Brooks met for the first time in person outside the conference on 19 October.
While filming outside the venue, Ms Brooks approached Linehan and asked: “Why do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?”
She told the court that Linehan had called her a “sissy porn-watching scumbag”, a “groomer” and a “disgusting incel”, with the complainant responding, “you’re the incel, you’re divorced”.
A video played to the court appeared to show Linehan grabbing Ms Brooks’ phone.
Asked why he threw the phone and did not return it, Linehan said: “My adrenaline was up, I was angry. I guess that feels like surrender, so I threw it away.
“I didn’t slam it, I just skimmed it. It was instinctive, as soon as I did it, I thought ‘that was a mistake’.”
Giving evidence in September, Linehan said his “life was made hell” by trans activists, adding that the complainant was a “young soldier in the trans activist army”.
The writer, referring to Ms Brooks as male, added: “He was misogynistic, he was abusive, he was snide.
“He depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.”
Ms Faure Walker said Linehan had posted about Ms Brooks “relentlessly” and that his posts were “oppressive”.
The court previously heard that Linehan had posted on social media about someone with the name “Tarquin”, which Ms Faure Walker said was the defendant’s “derogatory term” for the complainant.
Linehan, who appeared via video link on Wednesday, has denied one count of harassing Ms Brooks on social media between 11-27 October 2024, and a further charge of criminal damage of her mobile phone on 19 October 2024.
The trial continues.
