Father Ted Creator To Seek Asylum In US As ‘Free Speech Refugee’

The comedy genius IT Crowd, Black Books and Motherland, was flying back from Arizona where he has made a new life for the past six months.

In the court papers, Linehan gave an address that is in a luxury apartment complex in central Scottsdale, where his two-bedroom flat rents for around £2,600 a month. Scottsdale is known as an enclave of ‘free speech’.

Linehan’s life in Scottsdale, which boasts an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, could not be more different from the small docklands flat in south London where he lived after the break-up of his marriage in 2020.

The ‘resort-style living’ includes an indoor and outdoor pool in the complex, a gym, a rooftop spa, sun deck and numerous trees designed to make the place feel like an ‘oasis’.

He also has access to more than six acres of landscaped paths and walkways, indoor basketball court, on-site personal training, a putting green and a rooftop outdoor theatre.

Should the stress of his situation get too much, he can chill out in the outdoor spa and steam rooms.

He has formed a production company, Friendly Fire, with former Saturday Night Live star Rob Schneider and Northern Irish playwright and journalist Andrew Doyle, and filming on their new comedy called Tenure is set to begin within weeks.

Republican Schneider, who once played Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo in the 1999 film of the same name, is something of a kindred spirit with Linehan when it comes to their transgender views.

In 2023 he clashed with transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, calling her transgender identity ‘cultural appropriation’.

Schneider this week revealed that Linehan has hired MAGA lawyer Aaron Siri over the asylum bid to appeal to President Donald Trump.

After Linehan’s arrest Schneider announced on X: ‘This morning, our attorney at Friendly Fire Studio, @AaroSiriSG, will ask the Trump Administration to give Asylum to Graham Linehan as a UNITED KINGDOM FREE SPEECH REFUGEE’.

It is not clear which visa Linehan could be granted, or if the Trump administration would give him a green card, which allows for permanent residency.

However, Donald Trump has prioritised resettlement to the US for groups he considers marginalised, including white Afrikaners from South Africa who he claimed were being subjected to ‘genocide’ back home.

The lawyer Linehan has turned to Siri is a vaccine sceptic who works closely with US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Siri said this week that he was ‘confident he (Linehan) will be able to flee the persecution’ in the UK.

In a statement to the Daily Mail, Siri said: ‘We have been in contact with Mr. Linehan. We have a robust immigration practice at the firm. We are confident he will be able to immigrate to the United States and flee the persecution and abject infringement of his fundamental right to free speech’.

Siri also took aim at Britain’s record when it came to free speech.

He said: ‘The UK’s increasing disregard for this fundamental right is disturbing. The UK is already ranked as more illiberal than Brazil, Costa Rica, and Uruguay when it comes to free speech, and is on the fast track to becoming less liberal in permitting speech than Tunisia or Iran’.

Amid a growing backlash, his supporters are calling for a new ‘Linehan’s Law’ to ensure no British citizen ‘is ever arrested, silenced or gagged for expressing lawful speech’.