The Metropolitan Police Has Questions to Answer Over the Officer Who Stood Up for Free Speech Surrounded by Angry Muslims
The Metropolitan Police has so far not commented on the viral video of a female police officer defending freedom of speech surrounded by a crowd of angry Muslim men in Whitechapel but it has questions to answer.
The Mail ran the video yesterday.
This is the moment a police officer defends a Christian preacher in Whitechapel and is told: “This is a Muslim area.”
The confrontation sees a female Met Police officer being surrounded by males and telling them: “In this country, we have freedom of speech.”
She continued: “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. He’s not in your home.”
Questions for the Met include: why is it that this police officer understands English law in a way that the three Met police officers who arrested Christian street preacher, John Sherwood, in Uxbridge in 2021 apparently did not?
In 2022, Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court acquitted Pastor Sherwood of the public order offence with which the Crown Prosecution Service had charged him. The court upheld his freedom “to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority” as set out in Article 10 of the 1998 Human Rights Act.
Christian Today reported on the case at the time:
On April 23rd 2021 Metropolitan police officers arrested the pastor near Uxbridge tube station.
He had been preaching on Genesis 1 verse 27 and said that the family unit as ordained by God consisted of a father and a mother, not two fathers or two mothers.
Some passers-by complained to the police that he was using homophobic hate speech.
The pastor, then 71, was arrested, held overnight at a police station and in September was charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which outlaws “threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress”.
Is it not the case that if the police officer involved in the Whitechapel confrontation had been called to the scene in Uxbridge in 2021, the Met would not have suffered the humiliation of losing in court? Pastor Sherwood would never have been arrested in the first place.
The question now arises for the Met: will the exemplary and courageous conduct of this police officer be used in training sessions for officers and recruits on how to deal with vexatious anti-free-speech complaints against Christian street preachers and others who are lawfully expressing their views in public?
Furthermore, how does the Met reward frontline police officers who earn the respect of the law-abiding public in the way that this particular officer has for defending traditional British freedom of speech?
The Met might be advised to review the exchange between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office last year.
After Vance raised concerns about infringements to freedom of speech in the UK, Starmer said:
We’ve had free speech for a very very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very very long time. … In relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there.
Is the Met similarly proud of the UK’s free speech history? If so, surely it would be keen to answer the questions above.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
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Good sense at last
She will unfortunately be sent for reprogramming (for doing her job properly)
Or might be promoted to keep her off the street – a cynic might observe.
👍
I would promote and her and put her in charge of the Met as she seems far better qualified that Rowley Poly and streets above Cressida Dyke.
She’d be accused of being a ‘DEI hire’ by all the men, including the many hypocrites on here who have stated in the past that women shouldn’t be allowed to be front line police officers or in positions of leadership. One of them being yourself.
… a police officer defends a Christian preacher in Whitechapel and is told: “This is a Muslim area.”
This can only mean “this is a colonised area”.
As observed by Jim Ratcliffe
If she goes back the Jihadis will gang rape her and the Met and the BBC will call it enriching.
funny, but a justified remark
“A Muslim Area”?—–How long before the whole of the UK is a “Muslim Area”? —-If anyone said “This is a Christian Area” in regard to where they live their feet would not touch the ground and they would be whisked away to the DIVERSITY GULAG.
The important bit is at the end: The Muslim guy says that someone might attack the preacher and smash him up. To which the police lady replies: “That’s their risk.” Assuming I didn’t misunderstand this, that’s a bit of a strange idea of freedom of speech: The preacher has the freedom to preach. And the Muslims have the freedom to smash him up, maybe not from theoretical/ legal perspective but in practice, if they want to do that, nobody’s going to stop them. They might eventually face charges because of this but Allah called and they had to obey and in any case, that’s not going to help the preacher after he got smashed up.
Does the Met at least aspire to uphold British law in the streets of London regardless of Muslims who want to smash someone up? Or would this be islamophobic racism?
Wasn’t that the outcome of the trial of the man who got all stabby, having gone back to the house to get a knife when someone ‘disrespected’ the Koran?
I believe the judge blamed the victim for that too… 🤷🏼
That’s a fair point. I initially interpreted that as her saying that whoever did the “smashing up” would be taking a risk, but perhaps your interpretation is correct, in which case it’s an odd comment to say the very least.
She will be cancelled. Someone from some august Islamist body will complain about her and her unacceptably British behaviour and she will be deleted by a stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen.
Was it ”exemplary and courageous”? Or are we that used to seeing police pandering to and brown-nosing the Muslim community, instead turning against anyone white and/or Christian with their two-tier policing, that this individual officer’s impartial and reasonable response stands out as something extraordinary and unique? Her response needs to become the norm and translated to places like Speakers Corner, where Muslims routinely gang up on Jews or Christians to intimidate or even attack them physically, yet it’s always the lone preacher that gets moved along by the police, never the baying mob of Muslims. Speaking of Whitechapel: Monty gets up close and personal with a group of confrontational people of a migration background, just because he’s querying why there’s so much foreign signage around. But this is what happens when enclaves are allowed to morph into parallel societies and before you know it you’re a stranger in your own homeland; ”This is what happens when you tell people living in England that English should be spoken… In Whitechapel, the tube sign is written in English with a Bengali translation. That is ridiculous. I’m told it is to help local residents in the area that are “evolving”. My view is… Read more »
He’s having to raise money to pay for a qualified bodyguard, now. The penny has finally dropped that he’s putting himself at serious risk with these street interviews. I try to avoid watching what my son posts because I wouldn’t sleep at night, he’s had that many close calls 😟.
Simply by being unusual and speaking out like this in the current climate, yes, I would say that she is exemplary and courageous.
It shouldn’t be, obviously, and the fact that it absolutely IS, is a clear statement of the deep societal doo doo that successive governments and their useful idiots in the police and civil service have landed us in.
But you are forgetting “Diversity is our strength”—–I heard someone on TV say that again this morning and I nearly sprayed my cornflakes at the Television. —–It’s funny how the Chinese and Japanese manage to be STRONG without all of this “Diversity”, which is just another mamby pamby excuse by the Corporatists and Global Government people seeking to destroy National Identity and Culture so we can all just feel like good little global citizens governed from afar by technocrats we never heard of or voted for——And tragically it is working.
I have a feeling the officer to her right, in the still, might not entirely agree with her stance, here…
Given the current climate, and given what we know about how Islam views women, this is an incredibly brave and impressive young lady – hats off to her (male officers would do well to note what bravery actually looks like these days).
I have another question for the Met though, not raised within this article: how are English police officers serving in the capital of England to deal with a religious mob staking claims of occupation on an area of England? Isn’t that the very definition of an invading force? It could easily be argued that those claims demand a military solution.
I suspoect the officer in Whitechapel is, as we write, undergoing disciplinary proceedings which will lead to mandatory retraining.
The muslims gave away the truth when they said “This is a muslim area” as if such a thing can exist in Britain or that such a statement gives them the right to close down free speach by others. This goes to the heart of why multiculturalism was always a bad idea for everyone except the muslims and socialists/marxists who want to destroy Britain.
Shame she did not challenge this and say there is no such in England.
It also makes you wonder if a different officer had attended, would there have been a completely different response? Because there seems to be quite the inconsistency in their policing and this officer’s proportionate, assertive and efficient way of dealing with that situation should be the rule, not the exception. But would a Muslim officer have done as she did? Speaking of ”Muslim areas”: I wonder what percentage they have to hit before they consider themselves to have acquired rights to land so that they behave in a territorial manner and class an area as theirs. These figures are from 2021 so I dread to think what 2031 will look like if things are left as they are; ”This is Manchester: the cradle of the Industrial Revolution; one of Britain’s great urban centres; the home of The Smiths, Oasis, and The Stone Roses. Manchester: we do things differently here—right? Wrong. If you think it’s just one area—again—you’re wrong. Muslim population in 2021: • Oldham: 24.4% (up from 17.7% in 2011) • Rochdale: 18.8% (up from 13.9% in 2011) Bolton was 19.9% Muslim. Other religions (excluding Christianity) were as follows: • Hindu: 2.0% • Buddhist: 0.2% • Sikh: 0.1% • Jewish:… Read more »
They do exist, parts of Harehills ,Leeds is one of them, I was told tolerated because delivering for Iceland, but they made it abundantly clear not apart from that
Wonder if they will sack her
I’d like to think that this encounter is 100% legit and exactly what it seems.
But I have a nagging sense that this might be a set up of some sort. Maybe even to gently start steering the national conversation in that direction.
I’m afraid that is how jaded I’ve become.
Hmmm. I wouldn’t say that being jaded, I’d say that’s not being naïve. And this is all part of how they do it of course – make it impossible to know what is true and make it impossible to trust anyone. There’s the nuclear division they need.
Three cheers for that brave, knowledgeable, wise and principled woman. More of these in the police, please. Hip hip, hooray!
I am sure they were planning to sanction this woman, but have been cowed into inaction by the response of all like-minded supporters of her eminently sensible stance.
Is it just wishful thinking, or does the officer involved have an air of internet sensation Amelia about her?
Her colleague is very quiet.
She should be fast tracked to the head of the MET as soon as possible. Someone with some common sense for a change.
Looks like a good candidate for promotion …. to Met Police Commissioner … to me.
You cannot be offended without your own consent. ——These people need to STOP consenting to being offended.
He might get smashed up, says Abdul. Surely that’s grounds for arrest.