Street preaching and the police - again

The Telegraph has covered the story of Miguel Hayworth, a street preacher in Manchester who was spoken to by the police on July 25.

Mr Hayworth’s side of the story is as follows:

“At 2pm, I was approached on more than one occasion by several police officers who falsely accused me, stating that I was inciting hatred with homophobic and racial comments. One plain-clothed officer, who was with the other two uniformed officers, said: 'It is against the law to preach and hand out tracts: preaching causes offence and handing out tracts is harassment and could result in an arrest.'”

For the police, Chief Inspector Chris Hill, of Greater Manchester Police, said:

“Police were called to St Ann's Square in Manchester city centre following complaints from members of the public who considered the comments being made by two street preachers as racist and homophobic. When spoken to, the men said they were quoting from the Bible. The officers confirmed they were entitled to preach on the street, but advised them offensive behaviour is not acceptable.”

You will notice that there are differences between the two accounts.

1. Mr. Hayworth says that officers falsely accused him, stating that he was inciting hatred. Mr. Hill implies that the officers made no accusations, but simply advised Mr. Hayworth and his co-evangelist that offensive behaviour was not acceptable.

2. Mr. Hayworth says that the officers told him that it was against the law to preach and hand out tracts, whereas Mr. Hill says that the officers confirmed they were entitled to preach on the street.

Someone’s story is not strictly accurate.

Intriguingly, the Telegraph tells us “The second officer, Mr Hayworth claimed, also warned him his actions were being videoed and recorded, and he stopped preaching.”

Now, if the whole thing was videoed and recorded, and the recording made public, we would be able to hear for ourselves what exactly Mr. Hayworth had said - which would be helpful to know. But it would be even more helpful to know what the police said. Would the police have been happy to have their actions and words recorded? And if not, is there any way of actually finding out who is telling the truth?

I note that the Christian Legal Centre has instructed Paul Diamond, a religious rights barrister, and has also written to the police. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

In the meantime, there is something that interests me. There have been several incidents in the last few years (e.g. this and this) when street preachers have been approached by police officers and either warned or told to stop. The police who approached Mr. Hayworth must surely have been aware that there was a strong chance that this story would make the press, and that there would be another “Police-curtailing-freedom-of-speech” story. What do the police actually think of this?