Police and street preachers in Scotland seek to prevent hate incident
From: Evangelical Focus.
A street preacher was wrongfully detained and won £15,000 in damages and legal costs, but the police logged in a ‘non-crime hate incident report’ against him.
The Scottish police has paid a large amount of damages to Angus Cameron, a street preacher and former pastor who was wrongfully detained in Glasgow in 2022.
He received £5,500 in damages, as well as £9,400 in legal costs. He donated the whole compensation to the Christian Institute, which provided legal assistance to him.
Wrongfully detained
Cameron was preaching in Glasgow city centre, when “he was searched in the roadway, in full view, being put in the back of a police van for over an hour”, said Simon Calver of the Christian Institute. The preacher was later released.
The police said he was arrested for “breach of the peace with homophobic aggravation”, but they called him two days later, to tell him that he would not be prosecuted. However, police officers logged in a ‘non-crime hate incident report’ against him.
“Despite knowing full well that the complaint against him did not amount to a criminal offence, his good name is to be associated with ‘hatred’ and potential criminality in police records”, said Calvert. “His preaching was not targeting individuals; he did not use offensive language; he was not aggressive; he did not try to cause offence; he simply quoted the Bible. There was no criminality at all”.
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