Well there's a bit of shocking news really a a quite well known speaker at Speakers' Corner
a chap called Mr John Sherwood age 71 was arrested yesterday for allegedly making 'homophobic'
statements after preaching from the Bible. He was then kept in a police station apparently overnight
and ultimately he was not charged but the police would not apologize and indeed
an investigation has shown that the police behaved quite properly even though they
stopped a man exercising his free speech and took him away and locked him up for the night!
This is pretty dreadful in my view. I'll link to the Daily Mail article underneath in the
description and i'll just read you a little bit of it here. Christian pastor arrested now he wasn't
arrested at Speakers' Corner he was arrested in west London preaching exercising his
rights to free speech in Britain, and as I say arrested for making alleged homophobic statements
claiming he was treated shamefully and doing what my job description says, presumably his job
description as a Christian. John Sherwood, 71, was led away in handcuffs, questioned in
a police station, and held overnight after being accused of making homophobic comments
outside Uxbridge Station in west London, according to the Daily Mail article. The grandfather claimed
he was left bruised after police pulled him off a mini step ladder he was using and cuffed his hands
behind his back. And a member of the public actually filmed this and you can see footage
of the way he was treated online. Quite disgusting and disturbing actually.
He says Mr Sherwood says ' wasn't making any homophobic comments i was just defining
marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. I was only saying what the Bible says
I wasn't wanting to hurt anyone or cause offense. I was doing what my job description says which is
to preach the gospel in open air as well as in a church building, when the police approached me.
I explained that I was exercising my religious liberty and my conscience. I was forcibly pulled
down from the steps (which he was, you can see that) and suffered some injury to my wrist and my elbow.
(I mean he's an elderly chap so it's entirely possible). I do believe I was treated shamefully
it should never have happened.' Mr Sherwood who preaches at an independent Evangelical Church
in north London was arrested under the Public Order Act for allegedly causing alarm or distress.
He was released without charge but a file has now been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service
for a review. The Metropolitan Police said a member of the public flagged down
patrol officers and alleged Mr Sherwood had made homophobic comments. Onlookers can be heard
shouting "He's an elderly man take it easy with him" before officers put him in handcuffs and took
him to a car, a police car. There's an organization called Christian Concern who are a campaign group
lawyers mainly are standing up for him on the grounds of free speech and religion. Now
I happen to know this individual, I don't know him well, but I certainly know from the Speakers'
Corner and it is the case that whenever i walk by he does quite make a point at shouting at me
and calling me a 'pig' a 'swine' and so on because i used to be a Christian, I'm no longer a Christian.
He's not a very pleasant man at least not in that role maybe he's very nice to his children
his cat and his neighbors maybe but um he is not a very gentle person he is quite
harsh but i will say this in his defense what he is saying is the teaching of Christianity. The head
of the the head of Britain, our Monarch, our Sovereign, the Queen, our Head of State is also
the Head of the Church, and the Church of England officially teaches exactly what Mr Sherwood has
been preaching in public so the official Head of State and he are saying the same thing
and yet he is he has been arrested now you can say oh well he's been released but that's not the
end of the story this uh action by the police and they've not apologized for it creates a chilling
effect on people on churches both and Muslims and Orthodox Jews and others as well I happen to know
a senior Imam in an important London mosque, I won't say which one or who he is,
who told me confidentially that he will not preach on this subject on Fridays in the
sermon because of precisely this problem that he could be arrested for preaching the teachings
of Islam, which happened to be the same as the teachings of Christianity and the teaching of
Judaism as well. In fact they are the traditional teachings of all religions as well as i can see.
So it's already had this chilling effect where people self-censor, they basically suppress
their religious faith even when they're preaching in a context of a mosque or a church
to their own folk they won't preach on it because of fear that either they'll be arrested or that
demonstrators will come in and behave violently and intimidatingly and i witnessed this myself
in a church St Michael's Church in Chester Square, London some years ago when 'Outrage!' came in and
disrupted a service a lawful service in the Church of England by shouting abuse screaming
blowing whistles and deliberately terminating the proceedings because the Church upheld
Biblical standards of sexual morality whether or not you agree with these views of course
the Church's views is not really the point if we believe in tolerance and religious freedom
then Christians and Muslims and others should be permitted to preach without
being molested or arrested handcuffed taken to a police station held overnight intimidated
for simply doing what in this country for the last nearly two thousand years has been
a basic religious right the right to preach the faith. So this is very excuse me it's very
disturbing I notice no one has spoken out apart from this Christian Concern group, no MPs,
parliament, government, no ministers, Home Secretary, head of the police, no one has said anything about
this at all so that that silence of course is complicit with this breach of basic liberties
liberties to preach the truth. And it's you know we should be angry we should be upset but
it's the way the West is going it's not just a problem of England of course this is the same
virtually everywhere in the west with a possible exception in the United States who at least have
a Constitution which protects the right to free speech, I mean on this subject
even though they're of course it's you know there are issues with it there too being affected by
the woke politics, the ideology that insists that we must agree with certain definitions of
sexuality and gender or you know you're basically shut down and punished or shamed or
attacked physically or otherwise. Anyway so this is a very sad day that this should have happened.
I suppose the only bit of good news is that he wasn't ultimately charged but the damage has
been done, no one from the government, the state, has spoken out in defense of this man Mr Sherwood
and his right to speak which suggests basically the police haven't apologized and it's gone to
the CPS so who knows what they will say um you know this is the state of modern Britain and
it's a shame it brings shame on our country, shame on our traditions, shame on our alleged advocacy
and defense of liberty which we preach at China we preach in Iraq we preach at other countries
but an elderly man preaching Christianity exercising his free speech is arrested and
the government says nothing and that's the world be living i'm afraid. Until next time.