Christian preacher is arrested and threatened with 'non-crime hate incident' after asking Muslim woman about passages in the Koran
John Steele, 60, had been out in Rotherham town centre on June 21 when he engaged in a '30-second conversation' with the passerby at a public awareness stall.
But following the encounter he was detained by police and threatened with a 'non-crime hate incident' (NCHI).
The South Yorkshire town has already been mired in accusations of 'two-tier policing' amid police reluctance to act on the systematic rape of young girls by predominantly Pakistani men due to community cohesion concerns.
In body worn camera footage of the incident Mr Steele chuckles to himself and tells police 'the world's gone mad' adding 'I asked a simple question'.
But an officer explains: 'This is the world we live in. I think it was your delivery.... You could deem [this] behaviour and [your] actions as anti-social behaviour.'
Another police officer says the victim felt 'frightened', adding: 'That lady has flagged a police officer down and said she has felt threatened by your manner. So for me that's anti-social.'
Mr Steele, who has been preaching the gospel for 25 years without incident, had been holding a sign that read 'God now commandeth all men every where to repent - Acts 17.30'.
The former miner and long-serving bus driver claimed the conversation with the member of the public had been brief and polite.
Despite this, officers can be heard demanding Mr Steele's personal details which he refuses to provide.
A policeman says: 'John, we're saying you've behaved in an anti-social manner because she's felt harassed, alarmed and distressed by your behaviour - by how you've approached her and the question that you've asked her and the manner that you've asked it.'
The officer adds: 'I've never had any issues with you before.'
Following his continued refusal to provide his details, Mr Steele is then led away to a police car.
His representatives have claimed he was taken to Rotherham police station, where he was detained, fingerprinted, and DNA-swabbed.
A court date was set but the Crown Prosecution has since discontinued the case, stating the prosecution was 'not needed in the public interest'.
Mr Steele, a former heavy drinker and militant during the 1984 miners' strike, said he became a born-again Christian in 1987 after reading Psalm 7.
Speaking on his experience, Mr Steele said: 'I've spent my life trying to help people find hope and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. I've seen the devastation caused by abuse, and I wanted to speak truth in love. Instead, I was treated like a criminal.
'I was shocked and gobsmacked. How can asking a question be labelled as hate?
'It was degrading. They took my DNA and fingerprints, for what? A 30-second conversation.
'This wasn't about me. It's about the erosion of our hard-won freedoms and the right to speak truth in love.
'I've never been arrested in 25 years. I wasn't there to cause trouble, I was there out of love, to share hope and to help people understand the love of Christ.'
Mr Steele had reportedly been questioning the passerby on a Quran verse that reads: 'if you sense ill-conduct from your women, advise them ˹first˺, ˹if they persist,˺ do not share their beds, ˹but if they still persist,˺ then discipline them ˹gently˺'.
The verse has caused controversy with critics saying it justifies domestic violence while proponents argue it has been taken out of context.
Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: 'We welcome the fact that this case has now been dropped, but it should never have progressed as far as it did.
'This is a clear and disturbing example of two-tier policing. It is both irrational and unlawful for officers to threaten members of the public with so-called 'non-crime hate incidents' simply for expressing lawful and peaceful views.
Ms Williams added South Yorkshire had been 'one again undermining public trust' following the incident and her group would be investigating whether a 'hate incident' had been wrongly recorded against Mr Steele's name 'despite his complete vindication'.
Over 250,000 NCHIs have been recorded in England and Wales since 2014 - an average of 68 per day.
Critics argue that NCHIs are being weaponised to silence dissent, especially on controversial topics.
NCHIs are defined by the UK College of Policing as: 'Any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender status.'
No evidence is required, and no crime needs to have occurred. If someone feels offended or distressed, police are instructed to record the incident, often placing it on the individual's police record despite no crime having been committed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Extra bobbies on beat reduce knife crime by up to 25pc, says Cooper
Extra bobbies on the beat have helped slash knife-enabled robberies by up to 25 per cent, Yvette Cooper has claimed. Seven forces reported falls of between 2 per cent and 25 per cent in muggings involving knives after targeted police campaigns against crime. Tactics included increasing visible patrols of bobbies on the beat, using drones, knife arches and detection dogs to support police on the ground, and deploying plain clothes officers. It followed a 14 per cent increase in knife-enabled robbery in the seven areas in the year to June last year amid a sharp decline in charging rates for the offences. The seven areas accounted for 70 per cent of knife-enabled robbery in England and Wales. Data published earlier this week showed just 5.1 per cent of robberies in London last year resulted in a perpetrator being charged, down from 6.8 per cent in 2021. For theft from the person, just one in 170 (0.6 per cent) of offences resulted in a charge, down from 1.1 per cent in 2021. After the blitz, West Midlands saw a 25 per cent fall, British Transport police 24 per cent, Avon and Somerset 9 per cent, West Yorkshire 7 per cent, South Yorkshire 6 per cent and the Met Police 2 per cent. Only Greater Manchester saw an increase of 4 per cent. Ms Cooper, the Home Secretary, said: 'When we came to office, knife-enabled robbery was increasing at a concerning rate, but we have now started to drive numbers of those offences down through the work of our dedicated taskforces, and as a result, we have also seen the first small reduction in overall knife crime for four years. 'The drop in knife-enabled robbery in key problem areas shows the impact that our strong new action on knife crime is having, but we now need to supercharge these efforts through more smart and targeted interventions. 'Anyone can be a victim of knife crime, but new 'hex mapping' technology shows that the vast majority of knife crime is concentrated in a relatively small, hyper-concentrated number of areas.' Data from the Office for National Statistics' Crime Survey for England and Wales, show that the proportion of the public who say they never see an officer on the beat has doubled in the past decade. Respondents who had never seen a foot patrol in their area rose to 54 per cent in 2023/24 compared with 27 per cent in 2009/10. Labour has pledged to put an extra 13,000 officers into neighbourhood roles. A ban on ninja swords also comes into force on Friday, as part of the Government's commitment to halve knife crime in the next decade. At least 1,000 of the weapons have been handed in as part of a surrender scheme. The Government has also pledged to tackle the sale of weapons online as part of Ronan's Law, which was introduced following the death of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was murdered with a ninja sword bought online. This would require retailers to report bulk or suspicious knife orders to the police, put in place more stringent age-verification checks and impose significant fines on tech executives whose platforms fail to prevent illegal sales. Pooja Kanda, Ronan's mother, said: 'Ronan was just 16 years old when his life was stolen by a 22-inch ninja sword that should never have been so easy to buy. Ronan's Law is not only a step towards justice for my son, but for every parent who wants to see their child come home safely. 'This law is about saving lives, closing dangerous loopholes, and holding those responsible to account. The Government's knife surrender scheme has been a sign of commitment to tackling the scourge of knife crime. While there is still much more to do, these are significant steps in the right direction.' The Home Office has also said a 'surrender van' will be deployed at this year's Notting Hill Carnival.
Times
39 minutes ago
- Times
Could Ian Brady's missing memoir help solve the Moors Murders mystery?
The main anguished question left unanswered by the so-called Moors murderers is, of course: Where is the body of 12-year-old Keith Bennett? Many articles, books and documentaries have agonised over this mystery for decades but it is rare that one unearths something genuinely new and which points, 60 years after he was killed, to a solid clue. The Moors Murders: A Search for Justice (BBC2) may just have found, if not a smoking gun, a strong signpost. The second and final episode of this conscientious, unsensationalist series reveals that the film-maker and journalist Duncan Staff has unearthed Ian Brady's secret typewritten autobiography — which Brady grandly called 'Black Light' — in which he describes the planning, murder and hasty burial of his and Myra Hindley's first victim, Pauline Reade, in 1963, including counting out the paces from her grave. This document could be the guide to where Keith is buried on Saddleworth Moor — though frustratingly it stops abruptly before getting to him. There are 200 pages missing. But they must, Staff reasons, be somewhere. Astonishingly, the pages that Staff has been given have laid hidden for years, with the police seemingly unaware of their existence. Staff believes the missing ones may have been deposited with Brady's solicitor. Hours before Brady's death in 2017 he asked for locked suitcases of papers in his room to be handed to Robin Makin, his solicitor. Police and members of the victims' families have requested access to it but this has been denied. Makin did not respond to the film-makers' request for information about the autobiography, said a statement. Bennett was one of Brady and Hindley's five victims PA Perhaps even more astonishingly, when Staff presented his findings to Greater Manchester Police it was at first interested but then appeared to have a change of heart. In the past, searches on the moors have proved very expensive, though this was not cited as a reason. 'We will carefully consider and respond, in a timely and professional manner, to any credible evidence shared with us that may lead us towards finding Keith,' said a statement. I'm no expert but Staff's findings seem very credible. Staff has been given access to a trove of Brady's documents and tape recordings of his voice held by Brady's confidant, the former religious studies teacher Dr Alan Keightley. Though it feels soiling to hear Brady's self-pitying, foul-mouthed whingeing (he even calls his own solicitors 'c***s') that he is allowed only a 'f***ing typewriter'. This film is not interested in raking over the gruesome details of the torture, rape and murder of their young victims, which, depressingly, are all too familiar. Instead it examines the possibility of harnessing new technology — GPS, drones, analysis of Brady's photographs and 3D scanning of the landscape — perhaps finally to bring closure of sorts for Keith's family. (His mother, Winnie Johnson, was buried with his little spectacles — all that she had left of him.) Of course Brady was a calculating psychopath. It is quite possible he deliberately removed the pages to play mind games from the grave with those still seeking Keith's body, the last power card he had to play. Maybe they don't exist; maybe he destroyed them, relishing sending people on a wild goose chase after his death. But as someone said, this is a social matter now as much as a criminal one. This mystery needs to be solved and this child laid to rest, and if there is a chance these pages can help with that, then surely it's worth a shot. ★★★★☆ Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix, the best Prime Video TV shows, the best Disney+ shows, the best Apple TV+ shows, the best shows on BBC iPlayer, the best shows on Sky and Now, the , the best shows on Channel 4 streaming, the best shows on Paramount+ and our favourite hidden gem TV shows what to watch this week TV guide
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
New migrant protest erupts as Home Office changes asylum seeker hotel plan
A NEW migrant protest has erupted after the Home Office changed plans for an asylum seeker hotel. Locals descended onto the Stanwell Hotel, nearby Heathrow airport, to make their voices heard. The London hotel recently announced that it was changing from being a mixed accommodation hotel to one only for male asylum seekers. Disgruntled locals approached the asylum hotel in Stanwell with their signs, pictures revealed. Meanwhile footage from the scene saw chants of 'protect our kids' continue to ring out through the car park. Police were said to be in the area but watched on as the demonstrations continued.
