Mick Hartley

Helen Joyce on the disgraced trans-identifying ex-cop weaponising the justice system – with the full backing of the police:

This is a short post to explain why it’s a short post — the answer being because when Graham Linehan was arrested on the tarmac at Heathrow last week for three tweets, I was immediately pretty sure who was behind it. And my suspicions were confirmed in open court — the report about Graham’s supposedly criminal tweets was made by a disgraced former police officer and trans-identifying man called Lynsay Watson, who ever since he was sacked by Leicestershire Police in 2023 for gross misconduct has made what appears to be a full-time job out of putting in false crime reports against gender-critical campaigners, and seeking to judicially review any police force that declines to take them seriously.

A lot has come out about Watson in the press since Graham’s arrest, and I talked to various journalists about it. Craig Simpson of the Telegraph has been particularly good.

As you can tell from this, I’ve been immensely frustrated by the way the police have allowed themselves to be weaponised by this deranged, obsessive, anger-filled man. This has been going on for ages….

I am in the throes of writing all this up for the Critic, the magazine where I have a regular column, but wanted to give a bit of a taster here, since that won’t be online for a while. In the meantime you can read an excellent overview of Watson’s career by blogger Stuart Campbell (Wings Over Scotland), another of Watson’s victims, and Stuart’s overview of the similar activities of one of Watson’s associates, Stephanie Hayden. The details are scarcely credible, but I can assure you that the reality is actually far worse — Stuart couldn’t possibly include it all because it would be impossible for anyone to follow.

For now, I’ll just finish by saying that this has been an incredibly dispiriting insight into the state of policing….