Private Prayer “Not Unlawful,” But Will British Police Take Notice?

Individuals who wish to pray silently in public, particularly near abortion clinics, might be unwise to feel comforted by the home secretary’s declaration that this is “not unlawful.”

One Birmingham priest, Father Sean Gough, last year made headlines when he was charged with violating the law and “intimidating service users” for standing near a Birmingham abortion centre while silently praying and holding a sign which read “Praying for Freedom of Speech.” He accused the government of “censoring the streets of the UK.” The charges have since been dropped.

Another man, army veteran Adam Smith-Connor, received a similar treatment in Bournemouth late last year, simply for praying silently.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman had, quite some time later, agreed that this policing was problematic. She wrote to every police force in the country, clarifying that “silent prayer, within itself, is not unlawful.” Mrs. Braverman added that

holding lawful opinions, even if those opinions may offend others, is not a criminal offence.

That officers need to be reminded of such basic principles in 21st-century Britain is cause for serious reflection in the first place.

Either way, this intervention “should,” according to the Catholic Herald, “end the harassment and arrest of innocent Christians suspected of ‘thought crimes’ in the vicinity of abortion clinics.” But this seems a little too presumptuous.

Reports emerged just this month of a 73-year-old woman being questioned by officers at her home because she took a picture of a sticker critical of transgender individuals in “women-only spaces.” This came after the very same Mrs. Braverman “banned,” as The Daily Telegraph put it, police from recording ‘non-crime hate incidents’ due to her being “deeply concerned.”

Who would be surprised if the home secretary’s declaration on silent prayer went unnoticed in the wind, too?