Christian Extremist Group Supports Preachers’ Lawsuit Against Cops

THE frightful Andrea Minichiello Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, is back in the news, this time claiming that street preachers who create public disorder with hateful verbal attacks on non-Christian religions, members of LGBT communities and others are simply motivated by ‘love.’

Williams is quoted here as saying of their inflammatory behaviour:

They want to share the good news of Jesus with people who might not otherwise hear it. Sometimes that means addressing the false claims of other religions or ideologies.

Williams was commenting on the CLC’s latest lawsuit involving a ravening, foam-flecked pack of preachers, known as “The Bristol Four” – including Michael Overd, above – who are suing Avon and Somerset Police over their “brutal arrests” in 2016.

The case began on Monday at Bristol County Court. The plaintiffs are Overd, Don Karns, Mike Stockwell and A J Clarke – two of whom came all the way from America to bellow nonsense. They are suing the police the police for assault, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, misfeasance in a Public Office, and infringement of their Human Rights, in particular articles 9, 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Overd is also challenging the police for what his CLC lawyers describe as an eight-year “sustained campaign of harassment” against him.

This included one police sergeant appearing on local BBC television in 2014 to encourage business owners “if they’re offended” by Mr Overd’s preaching:

To record any evidence on their mobile phone and send it to us.

The case primarily centres on “a dramatic” piece of body cam video footage revealing the “shocking” arrest of Overd in Bristol City Centre on July 6, 2016.

On that day, according to the CLC, Overd and his three friends were preaching outside Bristol’s Broadmead Shopping Centre.

At points, the crowd was loud and aggressive, some swore and were abusive towards the men. However, the vast majority of the crowd wished to engage in lively debate with the preachers. Members of the public debated all manner of topics, the differences between Islam and Christian belief, sin and life after death.

After the gospel had been proclaimed for at least a couple of hours police officers said the amplification needed to be turned off. Another speaker had set up, across the precinct, to speak about Islam and the police officer had decided competing amplification was unwelcome. The Christians turned off their speaker.

Mounted police then arrived to put a halt to the disturbance, and video shows the “homophobic” Overd:

Being brutally pulled to floor and screaming in pain. He was then handcuffed and dragged off to a police van and held in police custody for over seven hours.

The two Americans idiots were arrested because they could not give an address to the police:

As they could not remember where they were staying.

All four men were detained in custody for over six hours following the incident and were questioned extensively at a later date before being charged.

During the trial that followed, the prosecutor in court said that quoting parts of the King James Bible in modern Britain, as the preachers did, should be considered “abusive’ and “a criminal matter.”

All four were eventually acquitted of all charges. There has never been an apology or any admittance of wrongdoing from Avon and Somerset police.

Ahead of the hearing, Mr Overd said:

We have faced no alternative but to bring this case as the police must be held to account for their actions for what they did in July 2016 and moreover for their actions over the past eight years.

The freedom to preach the message of the gospel on the streets of the UK to the lost, is one of our fundamental rights in this country. If we lose that right, we will begin to lose every other freedom.

I believe I should be free to express views of public interest, including on culture or morality. I never use profanity, I do not attack people, however I accept that I do criticise ideologies, other religions and certain sexual practises. Ultimately free speech is worthless without the freedom to offend.

The attitude and approach from the police is that if they receive a report that a Christian is being “offensive”, they turn up arrest first, ask questions later. There has to be a cultural shift in British policing, not just in Somerset, but across the UK.

Williams chimed in:

Robust debate is often necessary, especially when objections are being raised or abuse is hurled. We shouldn’t be afraid of it. The aggressive treatment of Mr Overd and his friends by the police and prosecution is shocking. The police should be defending freedom of speech, not clamping down on it.

The standing point for the police is whether people are ‘offended’. This is an entirely subjective concept and cannot be used as the primary means to decide whether lawful preaching can be stopped and the preachers deprived of their freedom. Any suggestion that there is a right not to be offended must be strongly resisted. In today’s democracy, we need the freedom to debate, challenge and disagree.

We cannot allow the gospel to be shut out of public debate, and that is what is at stake in this crucial case.

At another of Overd’s court appearances in 2015, the preacher was fined £200 at Bristol Crown Court and ordered to pay compensation and costs totalling £1,200 at Bristol Crown Court. He was cleared of a second similar charge and another of causing “racially-aggravated” harassment aimed at Muslims.

Judge Shamim Qureshi said:

Overd Does not display any scholarly approach to the topics but merely preaches whatever little he had learnt, regardless of being rude or bullying to others. He happily shouts out the negative points of any other religion.