UK police department Avon and Somerset Police, were seeking restrictions on Christian street preacher Mike Overd with a civil injunction application, claiming that he ‘puts lives at risk’.
On Monday 5 October Avon and Somerset Police argued at a High Court hearing that Mike could cause “significant risk or harm to others.” The application for an injunction, made under the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014, accuses Mike of repeatedly ‘engaging in anti-social behaviour’ while preaching from the Bible in Taunton. If granted, an order would have threatened Mike with arrest, imprisonment, and contempt of court were he to disobey the six orders in the injunction.
The Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting Mike, says the Act is being increasingly used by police to suppress legitimate freedom of speech. Mike said the injunction was “the latest in a long line of attempts to strip me of my freedom to preach from the Bible on the streets of Somerset.”
