A Metropolitan Police officer recently garnered attention for his composed defense of a Christian street preacher who found himself encircled by an irate crowd. This incident, captured on video, stands out in contemporary Britain where Christian preachers often face opposition from various religious factions and, more troublingly, from law enforcement for exercising their right to free speech.

In recent years, a troubling trend has emerged where these preachers are frequently arrested, subjected to DNA testing, detained for extended periods, and brought before the courts at the public’s expense. Despite these ordeals, many are ultimately exonerated of any wrongdoing and even receive compensation.

Notably, Hatun Tash, a Christian preacher, has received £10,000 in damages from the Metropolitan Police on two separate occasions over the past two years. Both incidents occurred at Hyde Park’s renowned Speakers’ Corner, underscoring a significant acknowledgment of her wrongful arrests.

In another case, preacher Shaun O’Sullivan was acquitted of racial harassment charges in November 2025. This marked his 16th arrest, stemming from a call to ‘Pray for the Jews and pray for the Palestinians’ amid discussions on the Gaza conflict.

Earlier that year, a group of Christians was instructed to cease their gospel-sharing activities outside King’s Cross Station. A female officer from the British Transport Police reportedly told them, “I just think it’s wrong,” highlighting ongoing tensions surrounding religious expression in public spaces.

A few months earlier, a group of Christians were told to stop spreading the gospel outside King’s Cross Station, with a female British Transport Police officer telling them: ‘I just think it’s wrong.’

Also last summer, John Steele – a Christian preacher of 25 years – had charges dropped against him after he was arrested for asking a woman in a headscarf what she thought about Quran verses on domestic violence in Rotherham.

And just last week, it emerged Christian preacher Dia Moodley, who has been backed by the White House, was arrested for ‘inciting racial hatred’ and detained for eight hours after giving a street sermon in Bristol last November.

That is why the female officer who defended a preacher in Whitechapel, east London, while a group of Muslim men demanded his removal has been hailed as ‘exemplary’ for reminding them: ‘In this country, we have freedom of speech.’

‘I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don’t listen to him,’ she added to the growing crowd on Whitechapel High Street. ‘He’s not in your home.’

This is the moment a police officer defends a Christian preacher in Whitechapel over the weekend and is told: ‘This is a Muslim area’

One Christian preacher, Hatun Tash, has been paid £10,000 in damages twice in two years by the Met Police after she was unfairly arrested at Hyde Park’s famous Speakers Corner on both occasions. She is pictured bottom left being surrounded 

This was a measured response from an officer who was told by a Muslim member of the crowd that Whitechapel was ‘a Muslim area’.

According to the most recent Census, 52.2 per cent of the 18,841 people who live in Whitechapel are Muslim. But there is no law prohibiting a Christian from preaching in the area simply because there is a large population of another religion.

Toby Young, the leader of the Free Speech Union, told the Daily Mail today: ‘The police are far too quick to arrest Christian street preachers, often at the behest of woke activists. 

‘The courts have made it clear that stopping them preaching in the public square is a breach of their right to free speech, but the message hasn’t found itself into the training given to new police recruits. That’s why the behaviour of the woman police constable (WPC) in Whitehall was so exemplary. She knew the law.’ 

The Christian, clutching a microphone and Bible, could be heard preaching the Gospel in the viral footage, which is believed to have happened on Monday, a day before Ramadan began.

It took place just yards from the East London Mosque, one of the largest in Western Europe, which can accommodate up to 7,000 worshippers for daily prayers.

In one clip, a bearded male shouts at the preacher ‘talk about Jesus, don’t talk about Muhammad. Don’t say Muhammad.’

Footage has also now emerged of the preacher being shoved by a masked man as he is confronted.

Part of his equipment is kicked by a man wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a puffer coat, before another manically shouts in his face ‘where you come from?’

As the preacher replies ‘London’, the second man continues to scream and make gestures with his hands, before a third Muslim wearing a mask approaches the Christian from behind and pushes him with force.

Another man is later repeatedly heard shouting at the preacher: ‘Your God is a Jew.’

A male later explained to the female officer that he phoned police as the preacher was ‘talking about the prophet, then he said like a donkey’ which was upsetting ‘hundreds of people’ walking past.

He then accuses the preacher of ‘spreading hatred’ and alleges he was calling the Black Stone in the sacred Kaaba building in Mecca ‘a box’.

But the evangelist denies this and says he was quoting from Muhammad ‘who says if a donkey brays it’s because he is seeing Satan’.

The female officer defends the preacher and explains to a group of males that ‘in this country we have freedom of speech, the same way you guys have your freedom of speech’.

‘You guys don’t need to see eye-to-eye, and you don’t need to agree,’ she says. ‘You’re all more than welcome to stand here and have conversations with them, but they’re not being aggressive.’

The officer continues: ‘I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would recommend that you just move away and don’t listen to him.’

Another male approaches the officer and complains that ‘he is in our community, and you don’t see Muslims walking around and insulting other faiths’.

The police constable responds: ‘You guys can preach about your religion the same way he is.’

She denies that he is inciting hatred but admits he is at risk of being assaulted. But she reassures the group that cameras are monitoring the area in what she describes as a ‘heavily Muslim community’.

A preacher being targeted for spreading their views is an all-too familiar site in the UK.

In September 2024, Hatun Tash was paid £10,000 damages by the Met for the second time. 

She was preparing to make a speech about the Koran at Speakers Corner when she was frog-marched away by officers as a mob surrounded them shouting ‘Allah Akbar’.

Ms Tash, whose Koran was stolen, accused the Met of wrongfully arresting her for criminal damage and wearing a T-shirt depicting one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which is seen as blasphemous in Islamic teaching.

The Met was forced to pay her £10,000 in damages and costs, almost two years after paying her the same amount for arresting her in the same spot. 

Preacher Shaun O’Sullivan (pictured) previously said he plans to sue Wiltshire Police after being cleared of racial harassment following a six-day trial

In October 2022, they paid her £10,000 after she threatened legal action over two arrests at Speakers Corner in 2020 and 2021. In July 2021, she was stabbed at Speakers Corner but her attacker was not caught.

While in September 2022, she was the subject of a murder plot by Muslim convert Edward Little, who is serving 24 years in jail.

Meanwhile last week, a Sudanese asylum seeker who dragged Christian preacher Daniel Ayettey off a ladder and threatened him with a knife at Speakers Corner was spared jail.

Another preacher, Shaun O’Sullivan, told the Mail in November that he was planning to sue Wiltshire Police after being cleared of racial harassment following a six-day trial in Crown Court, at an estimated cost of £20,000 at the taxpayer’s expense.

Mr O’Sullivan, 36, preaches at Swindon’s evangelical ‘Awaken’ church and on the streets to homeless and addicts on the fringe of society, as he once was. But he claims that some police officers have a ‘vendetta’ against him and are looking for reasons to arrest him.

Despite his remarkable tally of arrests, none of the charges or cases brought against him have stuck, and a jury unanimously threw out the latest case of racial and religious harassment against him in just 90 minutes (which included their lunchtime break).

Those proceedings followed an allegation that he was guilty of harassing Muslims by saying the words: ‘Pray for the Jews and pray for the Palestinians’ in relation to the Gaza conflict.

On a separate occasion, he was arrested after it was alleged that his ‘God bless you’ comment had offended Muslims at a pro-Palestinian march.

In June 2025, John Steele, a street preacher of 25 years, approached a stall managed by a Muslim woman wearing a hijab and asked her about how the Quran addresses domestic violence.

He was arrested by police and told he faced a ‘non-crime hate incident’. Steele was detained, fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA but the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges, stating the prosecution was ‘not needed in the public interest’.

Earlier this week, it also emerged that evangelical pastor Dia Moodley, 58, was arrested for ‘inciting racial hatred’ in Bristol.

Mr Moodley – who has been supported by the Trump administration across the pond – was detained for eight hours in November last year for ‘commenting on Islam and transgender ideology’, his legal counsel say.

Christian street preacher Dia Moodley, 58, was arrested on suspicion of ‘inciting religious hatred’ after he delivered a sermon ‘on Islam and transgender ideology’

He claims he has faced repeated enforcement action by Avon and Somerset Police for the past four years. The preacher was arrested on November 22 on suspicion of a racially/religiously aggravated public order offence, and assault by beating.

He was later released on bail conditions that prevented him from entering Bristol city centre, initially until the end of December. But police then questioned him further at his home in January.  

Mr Moodley also faced police action in March 2024 after commenting on Islam and saying that sex was binary while street preaching outside Bristol University.  

As well as individual preachers being targeted, councils have also taken action to try and ban religious groups.

In March 2025, Labour-run Rushmoor Borough Council, in Hampshire, sought an injunction to ban Christians from preaching, praying and handing out leaflets in the town centres of Farnborough and Aldershot.

They claimed preachers were being ‘offensive’ and caused ‘alarm and distress’.  The council later U-turned on the decision.

Meanwhile, four months later, the London borough of Hillington tried to do the same in Uxbridge – but a group of Christians overturned the legal ban.