More excellent pieces are coming in in support of Glinner so I am doing a Part 2 on those pieces and a Part 3 on other news.
So, onwards with Part 2 and sticking with In The Heat Of The Night.
Spoiler alert: the clip below is the final scene.
Sidney Poitier is Virgil Tibbs.
Rod Steiger is Sheriff Gillespie.
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
Glinner was in the Magistrates Court today on different charges following a complaint by a ‘trans activist.’ This is why he had returned to England. Since it is an ongoing trial I am going to refrain from commenting on it as yet. I believe it will conclude tomorrow.
As readers will know I have produced a one off piece arguing that the whole issue of free speech in the UK and its erosion needs to go to the Supreme Court:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/gird-your-armour-onand-keep-speaking
Effectively I think there is a central clash between the ancient common law right of free speech, now also enshrined in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the protected characteristic of gender critical belief under the Equality Act on the one hand and, on the other hand, hate speech.
Sarah Phillimore on her substack helpfully looks at non-crime hate incidents:
Hate Speech v Free Speech. How did we end up here?
An attempt to explain how fear of hurtful words has been hijacked by one minority group and protected by the police, to cause corrosive damage to our society.
Sep 04, 2025
Given the international attention and anger focused on the arrest of Graham Linehan on September 2nd 2025, I thought it would be helpful to set out a short explainer of how transgender identity has been allowed to hijack our basic understanding of what is meant by ‘free speech’ and some thoughts on where we are likely to end up if this is not stopped.
The rise of the ‘Non Crime Hate Incident’
The police have long lived in the shadow of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the righteous anger directed at their failure to act promptly or at all to find his killers. The Macpherson report of 1999 was clear that as the police were institutionally racist, they could not be trusted to make proper assessments of any report of racial hatred and must therefore simply accept all complaints and investigate them thoroughly.
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The ‘investigate’ bit often got neglected and soon a two tier system gained root - criminal offences and the ‘non crime hate incidents’ where any complaint, no matter how ridiculous made by a member of a ‘monitored strand’ would be accepted at face value and recorded on a ‘crime report’, using the words ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ There was no clarity about when or where that recorded information would be disclosed.
The purported justification is that it provided the police with valuable ‘operational intelligence’ about people to keep an eye on, those who were skirting the edges of criminality but hadn’t yet crossed over. How the police were going to use such reports for anything useful when they had no way of sifting the malicious from the genuine, was never explained. The numbers of NCHIs soon swelled to ludicrous proportions and were beyond the capabilities of any force to properly analyse in any event.
The monitored strands
There are five monitored strands and they mirror some of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act - race, religion, disability and sexual orientation. ‘Transgender identity’ which is not in the Equality Act was added in 2012 - see discussions below.
If you commit a crime against a ‘monitored strand’ resulting out of your hatred for them, you are looking at a higher sentence; these groups are deemed worthy of enhanced protection.
The interplay between protected characteristics and monitored strands has itself caused immense confusion with some believing that the police are following the Equality Act protected characteristics. They are not. A notable omission is ‘sex’. There are longstanding concerns that requiring police to record misogynistic hate crimes would overwhelm them.
This explains in part why women’s complaints of violent threats from trans identifying men did not get the traction when it was vice versa. Women are not seen as a group requiring enhanced protection but the trans identifying man is.
Challenge to NCHIs
Harry Miller rightly thought simply recording NCHIs without any investigation to their basis in fact was unlawful and fought and won victory in the Court of Appeal in 2021 to have NCHI declared unlawful. If you are unclear about why freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, the first instance judgment of Mr Justice Knowles will give you a good precis.
A Parliamentary Code of Practice followed in June 2023 to remind the police to use common sense, be aware of likely malicious complaints and to respect article 10 ECHR (right to free speech). That guidance of course appears to have been ignored, the Commissioner of the Met going so far as to say that the police have ‘no choice’ but to pursue complaints made against a monitored strand.
Sarah concludes:
So what will happen if we don’t stop this?
I can’t say it any better than Baroness O’Cathain in December 2003 so I won’t. She said this in the debates around the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. She was right.
‘If the Government persist in pushing through the Bill, they must make radical amendments to protect the freedom of conscience of those who simply do not believe that the law can declare a man to be a woman or a woman to be a man. It is only common sense and a basic human right for individuals to be free to believe fact rather than fiction, otherwise we are entering a dark future of coerced totalitarian-style law making.’
I hope the astonishing and furious response to Graham Linehan’s arrest marks the end of this very dark chapter for our society. We have been fortunate to have been long coddled. As Justice Knowles declared, in this country we have never had a Cheka, a Stasi or a Gestapo so we have been left pretty much defenceless as one emerged. I hope we have seen what is happening in time to stop it.
The full piece is here:
SEEN In Journalism looks at the amazing worldwide media interest.
Graham Linehan in court
Massive media interest after a backlash over his Heathrow arrest
Sep 04, 2025
We’re seeing unprecedented media cut through on the Graham Linehan story this week.
Dusty - this is Glinner outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning wearing the sandwich board used by Steve aka Edge of the Matrix ( who is also in the shot).
He’s in court today on charges of harassment and criminal damage, which he denies. These are unrelated to his arrest by armed police at Heathrow yesterday over three tweets.
Today there were around two dozen journalists in court, including two from the BBC, and multiple camera crews deployed. Along with UK broadcasters, Agence France Press sent a crew, while Associated Press and Reuters along have joined outlets in the US, Australia and Europe in their coverage.
There’s no doubt they were not diaried to be to do this because of today’s case. The explosion of interest since his Heathrow arrest has given it hyper-focus.
Moreover the global media interest is not largely in the alleged (and denied) crimes of the writer of Father Ted. It’s in the erosion of free speech which his arrest and part of this prosecution may be considered to represent, and in the conduct of the police.
This is most assuredly not what would have been expected by the complainant.
Gender identity complaints activism has run riot through the sex and gender debate for around a decade. The aim is to silence conversation, limit reporting and intimidate campaigners. As soon as gender identity activists came out from ‘under the radar’ in about 2012, complaints activism ground into gear.
We’ve seen it across the media, to both outlets and regulators, but where the police are concerned it was rocket-fuelled by early and sustained institutional capture. Violent threats towards women were not investigated, insults or so called misgendering of men were pursued with vigour. Even if the police decided not to pursue transactivist complaints, some grievance enthusiasts went to court to sue the forces involved.
Any journalist working in this field will know how often the violent abuse and harassment directed at women is raised as a story, and rejected. It goes way back to the late 20-teens and before, when the ideas first started being pitched to legacy outlets. Meanwhile the story about trans-led police capture has never been properly investigated despite the Harry Miller case.
The full piece is here:
JJ Starky on The Stark Naked Brief warns, amongst other things, about what is in the legislation pipeline ( as we have also warned about recently):
The Arrest of Graham Linehan—Everything That Stinks
Brass tacks of Britain's latest free speech scandal.
Sep 03, 2025
JJ Starky concludes:
The Free Speech Union has today announced it will help Graham sue the Met for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, and violating his free speech rights.
As for Britain, it’s hard to say anything other than, unlike Linehan’s actually arguably comical joke, we as a country have become a sick one.
They’ve kept pretty quiet about this but Starmer is currently pushing through new legislation that could make the sort of censorship Graham was subjected to more common.
Dusty - Please beam them up, Scotty!
His new Policing and Crime Bill introduces something called a "Respect Order". Police and potentially other authorities would apply for them through the courts.
Such an order can force someone to do or stop doing "anything described in the order." The threshold? Minimal. A judge simply needs to believe, on the balance of probabilities, that the person “has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.”
So, in theory, police could persuade a judge that an online post caused someone “distress”. The poster could then be legally compelled to delete it, avoid the topic entirely, stay off social media, or even hand over their device passwords.
And to think Starmer had the temerity to say we have a long history of free speech in front of President Donald Trump nearly a month ago. Behind-the-scenes, he’s laying the groundwork to undermine what we have left of it.
The full piece is here:
https://news.starknakedbrief.co.uk/p/the-arrest-of-graham-linehaneverything
Meghan Murphy, a friend of Glinner, looks on her substack at a journalist who has just done a U turn:
Graham Linehan is a hero and Malcolm Gladwell is a coward
Journalists who pushed trans ideology deserve to lose their jobs. Graham Linehan deserves accolades.
Sep 04, 2025
……………….
A clip of journalist Malcolm Gladwell circulated on social media this week, wherein he tells the hosts of The Real Science of Sport podcast that he feels “ashamed” at his “performance” during a 2022 panel discussing “trans athletes.” Gladwell moderated the panel, allowing two trans activists to argue that men should be allowed to compete and win in women’s sports, failing to challenge them on their unscientific, irrational, and completely unfair views and claims about men’s inherent physical advantages over women, regardless of testosterone levels being reduced through hormone treatments.
Gladwell now admits he shares the position of the podcast hosts, which is that men should not be allowed to compete as women in sport, yet he said nothing in defense of biological reality or of female athletes on the 2022 panel because he was “cowed.”
“I was objective in a dishonest way,” he says.
No. You were just dishonest. You knew you weren’t being honest, and you intentionally chose not to speak the truth because you were afraid, and were protecting your career, money, social status, whatever. I don’t care. I just don’t care. It is your job as a journalist to speak and report the truth, as best you can, and you did not. So not only did you fail to do your job, which means you should lose public trust, but you failed to act as a human with integrity.
Fear is no excuse. We are all afraid. We all were afraid. Do you not think I was afraid to speak up about this issue nearly fifteen years ago now? Do you not think it was scary to think I might be murdered every time I did a public event? Every time I walked out in public? That maybe someone would bomb my apartment? Do you think it felt good to lose friends, any chance at getting a job, to be banned from social media, to lose every single venue we ever booked to speak about women’s sex-based rights? To lose my book deal? To be insulted and libeled and verbally attacked across the internet?
Do you think that I did all this because I wasn’t afraid?? Or do you think I was afraid and did it anyway?
So, no. You will not receive my forgiveness. You will not gain my respect simply because you express regret. You deserve to feel ashamed for being a coward and for allowing the rest of us to take the heat.
I reserve all of my respect and admiration for men like
, as well as for all the women who spoke out early on, at their own risk, and with no reward.
The cowards can live with their guilt and they will get nothing from me.
Long live Glinner!
The full piece is here:
https://www.meghanmurphy.ca/p/graham-linehan-is-a-hero-and-malcolm
On a Spiked podcast Zack Polanski, the new leader of the English Green Party, calls for solidarity with ‘trans people’ and Tom Slater of Spiked calls for solidarity with Graham Linehan and gender critical women who have been harassed by the police 😊
Terf Vibes on her substack, Til Sex Do Us Part compares Glinner with the larping man who has recently won an award at the Edinburgh Fringe and then posted a selfie of himself in the Ladies ( of course):
A Tale of Two Comedians: Graham Linehan and the 'Ladies man'... 🙈
Award-winning comedy writer is met by police at the airport for tweets against men in women's spaces, and this two-bit rookie who takes smug/creepy selfies in the Ladies wins the comedy Oscar. 🤷🏼
Sep 04, 2025
No clearer depiction of all that is right and wrong with the world of comedy — and men — today could there be than this twin shot. On the left we have Graham Linehan, the much awarded and loved 57-year-old comic genius (a rare and much needed species of male) who has all but lost his comedy career, marriage, reputation and friends for sticking up for women and children against harmful lies being told about sex and gender by trans activists, and the huge amount of public money being shoveled into all things ‘trans’ and out of women’s rights causes for the last eight years. Here he stands in the hospital where he spent hours on a blood pressure monitor after his pressure rose dangerously following HIS ARREST AT THE AIRPORT FOR SAYING MEN SHOULD NOT USE WOMEN’S SPACES EVEN IF THEY’RE WEARING A FUCKING TIARA!
On the right we have the subject of my last sub, whose name I still haven’t learnt (remembered), and won’t if I can help it, who won the comedy Oscar, as is the ‘Best comedy show’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is known, for a show that he dressed up as female (ish) and identified as ‘trans’ — he appeared at the festival previously as a regular dude — joking about his wife now being a lesbian, while laughing at and demeaning women and our concerns about the trans invasion throughout. Then he takes this selfie in the Ladies to show us women and TERFs how much fun he is having, doing whatever he wants wherever he wants. NOTHING COULD BE LESS FUNNY THAN THIS!
I met Graham in Auckland last year at a free speech event at which he was the guest speaker; the subject: the widespread censorship of views critical of trans activism, in particular, his own.
At that time he was very optimistic that the UK's CASS review and report exposing the harms of puberty blockers and the lack of evidence that they help children who have been convinced by grown ups, including their teachers and counsellors, to believe they are the other sex, would be the end of this epic trans scam and scandal. But it very much was NOT the end, though some slow progress back to sanity is being made here and there.
The full piece is here:
Terf Island Discs
Thanks to an excellent suggestion from Tenaciously Terfin, we have paused Endpieces for the time being and we are giving Tenaciously and Liz a well earned rest from their hard work. So , since 07 July, we have been running Terf Island Discs.
Several readers have chosen up to 4 songs or pieces of music each and we are going through those one at a time in each update. This is going so well that I am going to continue it a bit further and you can now choose up to 6 songs or pieces of music each. They need to be reasonably short. We can’t expect to have readers listening to the whole of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto in B flat minor, albeit it is magnificent.
They don’t have to be from Terf Island BTW - anywhere in the world 😊
Please send links as well if you can.
So for those who have already chosen 4, please choose 2 more and, if you have not yet taken part, please choose 6!! If you repeat a song or piece of music that has already been chosen, I’ll let you know and you can choose another one. Please let me know your choices in the comments at this link:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/beware-of-the-flowers-terf-island
Next up!
Chosen by: Nicola Bell
‘You Were Made For Me’ by Freddie and the Dreamers
#BeMorePorcupine
#JeSuisGraham
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#KeepSpeaking
#LeaveKidsAlone
#JustSayMen
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin
Freddie and the dreamers on Dusty’s Substack! I can die happy now!
Terf Vibes’ twin shot was absolutely spot on and TT is also right regarding the respect orders in the Police and Crime Bill - ‘open invitation for victimhood culture to be put on steroids’. And probably lots of DARVO thrown in for good measure…
Thanks for all your amazing work as ever Dusty. You are creating an incredible archive and I’d love to see the looks on the faces of future historians or even students when they study the insanity of this era.
The respect orders in the Police and Crime Bill as discussed in the JJ Starky piece, could not be more chilling and are a perfect example of the madness, ideological capture, stupidity and authoritarianism of the people in power. I have to keep reading them in order to make sense of the kind of dystopian nightmare that such a bill would unleash….over and above what’s already happening.
‘a judge simply needs to believe that a person has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.’ Read that again in the context of trans activism just for starters. It’s an open invitation for victimhood culture to be put on steroids and it would stack the odds against any gender critical person who is trying to defend themselves in court.