Payout for anti-gay preacher over arrest: Landmark ruling in Christian's battle for free speech
Street preacher: Anthony Rollins was detained by police after preaching from the Bible
Police have been ordered to pay compensation to a Christian street preacher who was hauled off in handcuffs for saying that gays will go to hell.
A judge condemned the arrest of Anthony Rollins, who quoted the King James Bible on the subject of the ‘effeminate’ as he preached in Birmingham.
Mr Rollins was handcuffed and then held in a cell for nearly four hours after a passer-by dialled 999 and complained that his language was ‘hugely offensive’.
The ruling – which ended with West Midlands police ordered to pay more than £4,000 in damages to the 45-year-old preacher – appears to set a new landmark in the battle between the gay lobby and Christians who want to say in public that homosexual sex is wrong.
It comes as Christian leaders, notably former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, have been complaining against the use of equality law to force Christians to act against their consciences.
Judge Lance Ashworth QC said at Birmingham county court that police who made the arrest acted ‘as a matter of routine'.
'This was not done in any way maliciously, spitefully or arrogantly. It was done unthinkingly’.
Mr Rollins has been speaking on the city’s streets as a member of a Christian mission for 12 years. In June 2008 he was handing out leaflets in the city centre and quoting passages from the King James Bible – the Authorised Version which reaches its 400th anniversary next year – that refer to homosexuality.
One of these was from 1 Corinthians condemning the ‘unrighteous’, including fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, and ‘abusers of themselves with mankind’.
Effeminate, Mr Rollins explained to his listeners, meant homosexuals. He also quoted the Book of Revelation to the effect that ‘the abominable shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone’.
Mr Rollins said yesterday: ‘The judgment is excellent news. But I didn’t do this for the compensation. I did it for freedom of speech.
‘It was one man who called the police. A van came up with its lights flashing. The officers didn’t even ask me for my version of events.’
He added: ‘I wonder if they would have arrested the Bishop of Birmingham if he had been preaching on the street? Would they have handcuffed him and dragged him off as if he was a common criminal?’
Judge Ashworth’s ruling was dismissive of evidence given by the onlooker who called police and who said he had been offended by the preaching.
He said of John Edwards: ‘I was not impressed by him as a witness. He struck me as a man full of his own self-importance who in the witness box relished the attention and greatly embellished his evidence.’
The ruling was praised by the Christian Institute, the think tank which backed Mr Rollins’s court claim. Spokesman Mike Judge said: ‘Street preachers may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they are part of our Christian heritage.
‘Most people just walk on by and ignore it. The police have no business arresting Christians for quoting the Bible.’
The case is a notable victory for the Christian argument following a series of court reverses in recent years.
Street preacher Harry Hammond was convicted and fined in 2001 for holding a sign saying ‘Stop Homosexuality’ and an appeal on freedom of speech grounds failed.
In a key case earlier this year, judges said a relationship counsellor had no right to refuse sex therapy to gays and that Christians had no right to special protection from the law.
A test case on the right of Christian bed and breakfast owners to refuse rooms to gay couples is expected shortly.
dailymail.co.uk
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