A heckler’s veto on Christian street preaching in the UK

In a guest post, Kelly-Ann Cannon, Senior Lecturer in Law at Northampton University, looks at some recent cases on street preaching.

In Britain, there have been a number of incidents in which Christians have been prevented from preaching in public spaces by the police. For example, the recent incident of Pastor Dwayne Lopez in Uxbridge garnered much media attention. Pastor Lopez was asked to stop preaching by several Metropolitan Police officers because it had been reported by an individual that they found him to be offensive.

This is not the only example in which there has been media attention. There was the case of Angus Cameron, who was arrested in Scotland for alleged homophobic statements. Mr Cameron was given a non-crime hate incident by Police Scotland, but eventually, with the support of the Christian Institute, Police Scotland removed the incident against him, and he was awarded £5,500 in damages and £9,400 in legal costs. Continue reading