Police investigation of Christian preacher over 'hate-crime complaints'
Metropolitan Police officers have been filmed threatening to arrest a Christian preacher over allegations of a breach of a Public Space Protection Order. A video posted on social media showed a group of at least five officers demanding the names of evangelists due to allegations of a hate crime after they had been preaching and reading from the Bible.
The row was filmed outside the Pavilions shopping centre on Uxbridge High Street in west London and posted to YouTube. One of the Met officers can be heard telling the preacher: “Currently there’s allegations of a hate crime, a public order offence, Section 4a and allegations of homophobia." The preacher responds that he was just preaching the Gospel and reading from the bible.
A spokesman for the Met Police said: “Officers were responding to a report from a member of the public that a group of people were making racist and homophobic comments."
According to the Christian Post, the sermon, which caused the complaint, was biblical quotations from 1 Corinthians 6, which contains a passage about morality and redemption. The exact content, however, has not been made plublic.
Currently no arrests have been made.
Speaking about the case to the media, pastor Dwayne Lopez later said that this was not an isolated case and claimed that "the police are persistently harassing us for preaching from the Bible in this area of London".
Sources: The Telegraph, GB News, Christian Post, Christian Today
Image: Youtube (original video)