Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan told a court his life was "made hell" by trans activists after he began sharing his gender critical views eight years ago.

The 57-year-old Irish comedy writer, who also created The IT Crowd and Black Books, is on trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court accused of harassing 18-year-old trans activist Sophia Brooks and damaging the claimant's phone.

Linehan denies the two charges of harassment by posting abusive comments on social media between October 11 and 27, and of damage to a phone to the value of £369.

District Judge Briony Clarke said the prosecution would address the complainant according to their “affirmed gender name”, while stating that the defendant’s position was that the “complainant is male”.

Sat in the witness box on Friday, Linehan told a packed courtroom that his “life was made hell” by trans activists and journalists, adding that the complainant was a “young soldier in the trans activist army”.

Linehan said his involvement in gender critical activism had a devastating impact on his personal life and that he moved to Arizona in America six months ago.

He said: “I lost my marriage. When I refused to stop talking about it, that’s when they went after my wife.

“They scared her to such an extent, and the police visit scared her to such an extent. I was losing all my income, finally the pressure drove us apart. My friends disappeared.

Trans activists outside the court

“My Wikipedia page has been defaced and this (trial) is the latest attempt to punish me.

The writer added that he felt passionately about the gender critical movement and that he had a “duty” to protect women’s rights.

Linehan, who has a substack page; set out that he sent tweets about Sophie Brooks in order to “destroy his anonymity” as Linehan said Brooks has a “regular MO” of blending in at groups such as Let Women Speak posing as a detransitioned woman and wearing a scarf of suffragette colours to get the women there to confide sensitive information that would later be shared with trans activist groups.

“I wanted to warn people, this guy is dangerous, keep an eye out for him,” he said.

“The bar to insult or annoy trans activists is incredibly low, the idea of saying their real name or real sex is taboo, to follow that taboo, I would be forced to lie and trans activists have spent the last 10 years demonising women who try to stand up for themselves.

“I intended to make sure that the next time he came to any similar event, people would know to expect trouble, and people would be on their guard.

“I hate bullies, and the bullies who bully women are the worst of all.

“Many of the women fighting couldn’t risk fighting in an overt way, but I thought I had a moral duty to do it because no one else was reporting on it.

Supporters of the complainant at Westminster Magistrates' Court

”The nature of trans activism is that it is very male. It’s abusive, it’s sadistic.

“The police are basically working for trans activists these days.

“They don’t understand the issue and they believe everything trans activists say to them. A lot of institutions have been captured by trans ideology.”

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker said Linehan wrongly believed Sophia Brooks had taken insects into an LGB Alliance event in London on October 11 to disturb it, and from then to October 27 started tweeting about Sophia Brooks, including a picture of Sophia saying “he’s a deeply disturbed sociopath”.

Yesterday, Sophia Brooks gave evidence that this made her feel alarmed and distressed and told the court: “I was being branded as a sociopath by a famous person with a large social media following, his followers could have seen this post and caused grave harm to me”.

Other posts were read of Linehan’s, including him calling Sophia Brooks a “Scumbag, homophobic, grooming, sadist” and referring to Sophia as “Tarquin” in reference to her being posh.

The court heard that the pair later met at the battle of ideas conference on October 19 - Linehan was a speaker, and Brooks attended and took pictures of the attendees. Footage was played of Sophia Brooks filming the confrontation with Linehan and saying, “Graham why did you call me a domestic terrorist?” and he replied saying “go away groomer” and called Sophia Brooks a “disgusting incel”.

Brooks said in response to Linehan, “you’re an incel, you’re divorced,” and Linehan also called Brooks a “sissy porn watching scumbag”.

The supporters held signs, including one defining a woman as 'adult human female'

Linehan then grabbed the phone after Brooks approached again and today told the court that he “skimmed it like a stone” but did not intend to cause damage to the phone and instead wanted Brooks to go away.

“This typically involved placing a phone immediately in front of someone’s face only a few inches away and filming them while trying to provoke a reaction. People often try to block the phone and Tarquin treats that as a game.

“He had no respect at all for people’s privacy or personal space. I had to try to ignore Tarquin as much as possible, but was then confronted by Tarquin again at the end of the conference.

“Tarquin made a provocative statement about my current family position. I am now divorced and this is a very sensitive subject for me, as he well knows.

“The taunting from Tarquin was completely unnecessary. In response, I grabbed the phone and threw it to one side.

“I did not intend to cause any damage and I do not know if it was damaged or not, it was a reflex response to provocative actions by Tarquin.”

Linehan denies one count of harassing the activist on social media between October 11 and October 27 last year, and a further charge of criminal damage of their mobile phone on October 19 last year.

Sarah Vine, defending Linehan, made submissions on Friday that there was no case to answer in respect of both charges after the prosecution's case finished, but this was rejected by the judge.

The courtroom at Westminster Magistrates' Court was packed out by both supporters of Brooks and Linehan.

At the end of Friday’s trial, Linehan was met by cheers and clapping of his supporters outside the court who posed with him for pictures and carried banners reading “trans women are men” and “woman, adult human female”.

The trial resumes on October 27.