Unprofessional, Illegal Police Actions

Beggaring Belief

Given how London police actually police free speech laws, we are in a position to clarify what free speech rights mean to the Met.  The case involves a street preacher named Olu. 

Now, before rushing to conclude that the incident was the work of a rogue police officer (or two) we would remind readers that it would be highly unlikely that the Met officers would have acted as they did without calling their duty sergeant on the radio to ask for advice and direction.  Doubtless they would have endeavoured to portray the events as one extremist individual speaking offensively so as to wind people up to the extent that it constituted a breach of the peace. 

So there we have it: firstly, free speech to the London Met Police runs like this: if anyone is offended by the speech of another person, free speech rights have been breached and the speaker is to be arrested.  This, dear reader, is as close as you will get to a real life episode of Orwell's 1984. 

Or, an equally iniquitous explanation of the Met police's actions runs like this:
  if a public speaker riles up his audience to where they get mad and threaten violence, a breach of the peace has occurred and the public speaker must be arrested. 

The Met Police have changed their narrative on the arrest of a Christian street preacher last month after an investigation was launched into their conduct.  While police originally claimed they had walked the preacher some 200 meters away and then let him go, they now admit that they drove him away in a car, dropping him off several miles away.

“As the man indicated that he wished to continue his activities at Southgate tube station, officers felt it necessary to take the man some distance from the station in order to prevent a breach of the peace at that location,” police stated.  [Beitbart News]

Here is the rationale of the Met:

A viral video of the arrest viewed over 2.3 million times stirred up a public outcry and the advocacy group Christian Concern took up the man’s case.  In their report, the arresting officers said they had apprehended Mr IIesanmi “to prevent a breach of the peace” yet many believe the video footage of the event shows no hostile or aggressive conduct by Mr Ilesanmi.

In the verbal exchange recorded in the two-minute video, one of the officers tells the preacher, “we are going to require you to go away,” or “I will arrest you for breach of peace.”

“You’re causing problems; you’re disturbing people’s days and you’re breaching their peace,” the officer said.  To this, Mr Ilesamni said, “I will not go away because I need to tell them the truth. Jesus is the only way, truth and life.”
“Nobody wants to listen to that,” the policeman replied.  [Emphasis, ours]

But it gets even worse.

According to Chief Superintendent Helen Millichap, two officers responded to a 999 call from a member of the public who claimed that Mr. IIesanmi had made “Islamophobic” remarks. The arresting officers said a second witness “supported the allegations made by the original caller.”

Ms MillichapIn said that the officers deemed it appropriate to remove Mr Ilesanmi from the area, saying that the preacher’s activities were “perceived as being a potential hate crime.”  During the arrest, one of the of officers can be heard telling the Nigerian “you should have thought of that before being racist” as he pleads with them not to take his Bible away. 

A potential hate crime!  Now it's possible that there were people in the crowd who were committing a potential hate crime.  It is possible they made all sorts of personal attacks against the speaker, calling him nasty names and so forth.  But the Met, true to its apparent indoctrination into the world of 1984, accuse and arrest the one threatened, not those issuing the threats!

This is beyond bizarre.  It is fundamentally iniquitous.  A couple of clever manipulators have led Mr Plod up Alice's garden path.   If so, the Met appears dumb and dumber.  Professional and law-abiding it ain't.