On 13 October 2001,
Harry Hammond, an evangelist, was arrested and charged under section 5 of the Public Order Act (1986) because he had displayed to people in
Bournemouth a large sign bearing the words "Jesus Gives Peace, Jesus is Alive, Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism, Jesus is Lord". In April 2002, a magistrate convicted Hammond, fined him £300, and ordered him to pay costs of £395.
[11][12][13]
On 2 September 2006,
Stephen Green was arrested in
Cardiff for distributing pamphlets which called sexual activity between members of the same sex a
sin. On 28 September 2006, the Crown advised Cardiff Magistrates Court that it would not proceed with the prosecution.
[14][15]
On 8 December 2009, Mr Justice Richard Clancy, sitting at Liverpool Magistrates' Court, acquitted Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, hoteliers, of charges under the Public Order Act 1986 and under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The Vogelensangs were charged after a guest at their hotel, Ericka Tazi, complained that the Vogelenzangs had insulted her after she appeared in a
hijab.
[16]
On 4 March 2010, a jury returned a verdict of guilty against Harry Taylor, who was charged under Part 4A of the Public Order Act 1986. Taylor was charged because he left anti-religious cartoons in the prayer-room of Liverpool's John Lennon Airport on three occasions in 2008. The airport chaplain, who was insulted, offended, and alarmed by the cartoons, called the police.
[17][18][19] On 23 April 2010, Judge Charles James of Liverpool Crown Court sentenced Taylor to a six-month term of imprisonment suspended for two years, made him subject to a five-year Anti-Social Behaviour Order (
ASBO) (which bans him from carrying religiously offensive material in a public place), ordered him to perform 100 hours of unpaid work, and ordered him to pay £250 costs. Taylor was convicted of similar offences in 2006.
[20]
On 20 April 2010, police arrested Dale McAlpine, a Christian preacher, of
Workington in
Cumbria, for saying that homosexual conduct was a
sin. On 14 May 2010, the Crown decided not to prosecute McAlpine.
[21] Later still the police apologised to McAlpine for arresting him at all, and paid him several thousand pounds compensation.
[22]
