Radical feminist Linda Bellos in court over alleged threat to ‘thump’ trans women

A radical feminist and gay rights activist has today appeared in Westminster Magistrates Court and could face trial after allegedly threatening to “thump” a trans woman.

Linda Bellos, the 67-year-old former leader of Lambeth Borough Council, is charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which bans “threatening or abusive words or behaviour” that is likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.”

She appeared alongside 43-year-old Rose Venice Allen, who is charged with one count of sending an offensive message by a public communications network, after posting a video of Bellos’ comments online.

The private prosecution, brought by Giuliana Kendal after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case, centres around comments made and broadcast at an event about the Gender Recognition Act, held in York last November.

Bellos, who has previously spoken out about proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, says in the video that “having born two children I think I’m physiologically, and in many other senses, a female and a woman.”

“But I play football and box, and if any one of those bastards comes near me I will take my glasses off and thump them… I am quite prepared to threaten violence because it seems to me politically what they are seeking to do is piss on women.”

Kendal, a trans woman who watched the event remotely on a live stream, brought the case after the CPS decided not to press charges, claiming the comments were threatening to trans people.

Linda Bellos

Amanda Jones, the barrister representing Bellos and Allen, said they would be “asking the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to take on and discontinue the case,” saying that they had already been notified.

Appearing in the dock, Bellos wore a suffragette-themed pocket square, although many of her supporters were made to remove similarly coloured sashes at the entrance.

One supporter in the gallery also wore a T-shirt stating the definition of a woman as an “adult human female,” leading Kendal to make an application for the symbols to be removed as contempt of court.

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