Police interrupted a Good Friday church service yesterday, threatening worshipers with £200 fines for breaking Covid rules. Standing behind the lectern, one officer said the service was “unlawful”, adding: “You need to go home.” The Sun has the story.
Cops shut down a Good Friday church service and threatened the congregation with fines.
Two officers were filming striding up to the lectern yesterday to tell worshippers to go home.
They said there were too many people in Christ the King Church, which serves a Polish congregation, in Balham, South London, at 6pm yesterday.
One officer said: “At this moment in time you need to go home.
“Failure to comply with this direction to leave and go to your home address, ultimately could lead you to be fined £200 or, if you fail to give your details, to you being arrested.
“It’s Good Friday and I appreciate you would like to worship, but it is unlawful.”
The church has responded, saying that the police “brutally exceeded their powers”.
We believe… that the police brutally exceeded their powers by issuing their warrant for no good reason, as all Government requirements were met.
We believe municipal police officials have been misinformed about the current place of worship guidelines, claiming that the reason for their intervention is the continued ban on public celebration in places of worship in London due to the lockdown on January 4th, 2021.
We regret that the rights of the faithful have been wronged on such an important day for every believer and that our worship has been profaned.
The Sun highlights that “current guidelines do allow worshiping in churches to go ahead, with proper safety reviews and social distancing in place”.
Worth reading in full.
A video recording of this events has been posted on Twitter, and can be watched here.
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Heil Johnson!
Well, yes, but remember there is only one true god: and He resides in
heavenNo 10!Possibly God is actually Goddess Nut Nuts?
That woman has a lt to answer for.
No comment is needed to diagnose the sickness. It’s called a ‘police state’.
This is straight from the North Korea and USSR playbooks.
Meanwhile in big, bad authoritarian Russia where traditional family values are still encouraged and vaccination is a matter of personal choice, their magnificent churches are full with Easter worshippers.
Always wanted to go to St Petersburg
The police did the same in our mosque
They wouldn’t dare do that to a mosque.
Which one was that?
After recent events I thought the police couldn’t sink any lower, but clearly they can.
We may be getting into the terrain of underground churches developing.
That would be secure encryption.
That’s the key to it.
Each individual who has failed to inform themselves of the facts and slavishly followed the grosser reich ordnungs is complicit in this grotesque fascism…….
Matthew 18:20. “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” How much more so with a congregation.
Dare I put words into Jesus Christ’s mouth: “For where two or three move to stop gatherings in my name, there I will not be with them.”
The church has always faced persecution. As Catholics we are used to it.
The churches have done more than their fair share of persecution. As non-believers have been used to over history.
Those seated admittedly were not social distancing. Most were masked. Otherwise the service was fully legal and this is another case of the police over stepping their mark. I wish more churches opened for services instead of cowardly resorting to Zoom imitations.
I hope that I would not have complied. Posting videos of this sort of nonsensne helps a person prepare for the real thing.
Non story put up by The Sun on government orders but at least the Polish worshippers are putting up a fight saying no regulations were broken. Film footage auto linked to dreary Drakeford droning on about something.
Similarly Local Live (mirror group news) has lead item #6.
‘Covid house party breaches across County as neighbours call Police’
As evidence they cite Police “numerous reports of Covid breaches” before a very lengthy repetition of current lockdown regulations for which neighbours might report you if they could be arsed.
Intented to be a scare story when the real news is that people are gathering in public and at home which will hopefully encourage others to do the same.
Story is awarded the usual 223k imaginary ‘likes’ when it probably didn’t get 223k page views.
The policeman said ‘this gathering is lawful and then ‘corrected himself’ and said it is unlawful…..so he knows what he is doing and that he is in the wrong
The audio sounds edited ‘is lawful’ cut a tad too soon ?
So all crime was eradicated with the introduction of Covid and mask wearing along with the flu, giving hundreds of police that we never knew existed the opportunity to earn some overtime by criminalising, abusing and harassing people just because they can.
Seen enough yet?
And you wonder why the “Kill the Bill” movement is spreading.
The police have lost all respect of the public over the past year, and are unlikely to be able to restore any kind of respectability.
Christ is with the persecuted. Not with the cowardly, grovelling zoombies.
The only religion now permitted is the Cult of Covid. Fail to kneel and off with your head! Or you could just pay a ridiculous fine!
Didn’t the courts establish that you don’t have to comply with PACE requirements to provide details as the Coronavirus act makes no provision for anyone to provide details?
Also there is no right of entry, so did they walk into a ‘private’ session as the church (if following the rules) presumably closed the doors and said they were no longer open?
This action by Boris Johnson and his thugs is unforgivable. Don’t blame the police, blame him. He should step down immediately. Religious freedom is at the forefront of a democratically run country. Religious persecution has no place in this country. If this country is no longer a democracy, legally tell us what it is called. Dictatorship comes to mind. Where on earth has the Catholic Church been for the past one year? Where has this country’s civil rights attorneys been? Now look at what is happening. Please stand up for our freedoms. To the professional legal experts, solicitors, barristers, judges, your silence has been deafening
Yes…. there are many things which have no place in this country and yet here we are in just one short year. If we ever return to some form of democracy there are a lot of factions which will have to earn respect from scratch. The upside is, hopefully, many more folk will be wide awake and a truer democracy than ever before will eventually prevail. Many lessons learned. Optimistic?!
Once again the Police break the law. I suggest that all Christians go to Batley Grammar School or join a BLM protest in order to worship. What kind of country are these b@stards in Government creating? I find it hard this is the party I voted for but I do not find it hard at all to know for a 100% fact I will never vote for them or the pathetic “Opposition” again.
‘Police speak’ for ‘now.’———“At this moment in time.” Morons!
Am I the only one who’s offended that these police actually entered the altar sanctuary? I half blame the priest and congregation for not physically expelling them for this reason alone.
The police raid of the Balham church on Good Friday, during which they suspended divine service and sent the congregation packing, was illegal under English law
Section 36 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 is clear on this point
Despite the many statutory instruments enacted to control the current pandemic, none of these suspends the provisions of the aforementioned act, as far as I can tell
The case is almost certainly justiciable; not least by virtue of the added weight of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If due process is followed, the officers involved are liable to up to two years in one of Her Majesty’s hotels!
Here is the text of Section 36 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861:
Whosoever shall, by threats or force, obstruct or prevent or endeavour to obstruct or prevent, any clergyman or other minister in or from celebrating divine service or otherwise officiating in any church, chapel, meeting house, or other place of divine worship, or in or from the performance of his duty in the lawful burial of the dead in any churchyard or other burial place, or shall strike or offer any violence to, or shall, upon any civil process, or under the pretence of executing any civil process, arrest any clergyman or other minister who is engaged in, or to the knowledge of the offender is about to engage in, any of the rites or duties in this section aforesaid, or who to the knowledge of the offender shall be going to perform the same or returning from the performance thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years
Who will take them to task over this bullying? If we do not it will continue and worsen.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9435037/Outraged-Polish-Catholic-worshippers-slam-police-shutting-Good-Friday-service.html ANOTHER ONE TODAY
why don’t ours fight back?
Pastor Pawlowski, head of a church in Calgary, had a visit from a local Karen, backed up by numerous police. This is how he dealt with it.
https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=uTFTG_1617494852
Chapeau!