You may recall that last September a writer and comedian named Graham Linehan was arrested when he arrived at Heathrow airport because he’d written a few tweets deemed offensive to trans people. Here’s one of the tweets that was used to justify a public arrest by five officers.
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.
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) April 20, 2025
Linehan had lots of supporters after that incident and even Keir Starmer and the chief of the Metropolitan Police suggested the police had gone too far. Eventually the charges against Linehan were dropped but he threatened to sue with help from his allies at the Free Speech Union.
Irish TV comedy writer Graham Linehan will not face charges following his arrest over a series of social media posts critical of transgender people, prosecutors said Monday…
Linehan said he planned to hold the police accountable for trying to “suppress gender-critical voices on behalf of dangerous and disturbed men.”
The Free Speech Union, which helped him, said it instructed its lawyers to sue the Met Police for wrongful arrest.
The Free Speech Union was created in 2020 by Toby Young to handle cases like this one where free speech is at issue. Young (now Lord Young) was extremely critical of the police but also of trans activists who were behind the arrest.
If there’s one thing most cases have in common, according to Young, it is that they shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Linehan’s arrest, in which the Met acted “like the Stasi”, being a case in point.
“I think this statement from the Met shows that they have got fed up with this stuff – they recognise that the public want them to prioritise serious crimes like burglary, car theft and mugging,” says Young, who has called for all police forces in the country to follow Scotland Yard’s lead.
“I also think that in Linehan’s case, the police realised they’d been manipulated by a trans-rights activist who understood exactly how to weaponise the police guidance on investigating hate crime incidents, and to turn the police into an enforcement wing for their own agendas.”
Young is referring to Lynsey Watson, a transgender ex-police officer who is understood to have reported Linehan to the police over his social media posts
None of this sat well with a group of trans liberation activists who call themselves Bash Back. Earlier this month, they decided to target the Free Speech Union and hack their website.
On Monday, Bash Back said it had hacked into the website of the FSU, which recently supported Graham Linehan, the comedy writer turned gender-critical campaigner.
In a post on its website, it wrote: “The Free Speech Union is a membership-based organisation which purports to protect free speech. In reality, they work to protect transphobes, racists, and anti-choice activists.”
At 4.30pm on Monday, Bash Back posted a link to a list of names of FSU’s financial supporters.
The FSU made an emergency appeal to a court and Bash Back was ordered to remove the list of donors and not to publish anything else they had gained via hacking. That effort also named a specific person who the FSU said was identified with the group.
Autumn Redpath, 22, was named by Mr Justice Bright as a respondent to an injunction imposed on Bash Back, a pro-trans group, which allegedly hacked the website of the Free Speech Union (FSU)…
Redpath, who has a degree in cybersecurity from Warwick University and identifies as a woman, is a self-described “autistic, trans, anarcho-socialist hackergirl”, according to the activist’s now-deleted X account, The Mail on Sunday reported.
The activist’s LinkedIn says includes the details “aspiring academic in the UK with a keen interest in resistance studies”.
Redpath made a court appearance by video asking for an anonymity order.
In a court appearance via video link on Friday, the student called on the judge to grant an anonymity order, denying being a part of Bash Back, according to the newspaper.
In the rejected plea, Redpath said: “This group attracts a lot of hostility and I fear there is a real prospect of harm to me.
“I’m not here to defend Bash Back but having followed them in the past, I thought they might claim publishing this information was justified. As an activist group they believe their actions are just, even if they include breaking the law.”
For their part, Bash Back isn’t denying involvement in the hack but claims it has not previous connection with Autumn Redpath. Nevertheless, the group are asking that people not post the name or photo of this supposedly innocent person.
We would ask that those who support the co-accused refrain from using their name or face in social posts. This wrongfully accused individual values her privacy, and has requested anonymity.
We would encourage BASH BACK supporters to respect that.
— BASH BACK (@TransBashBack) January 11, 2026
So, the group that just hacked and published the names of FSU supporters now wants everyone to respect the privacy of Autumn Redpath. That seems more than a bit ironic.
In an emergency injunction from one of the highest courts in the UK, a judge has unmasked a ringleader or member of a trans violent extremist cell.
Trans militant Autumn Redpath was named by the judge after the Free @SpeechUnion took legal action when extremist group Back Back… https://t.co/Ew6w2npTik pic.twitter.com/b3o09BkyiM
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 12, 2026
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