Last weekend, Steve Maile, the senior pastor of Oasis City Church, was arrested by three officers while street preaching in Watford. Footary of the encounter shows Maile protesting his innocence while an officer suggests an allegation of assault had been made. Following his release on bail, Maile took to social media to claim he was “brutalized and victimized” during the arrest, describing the experience as causing him excruciating pain. While he remains defiant in his mission to preach, the Hertfordshire Constabulary clarified that while the assault charge has been dropped, Maile remains under investigation for a Section 5 public order offense involving allegedly racially or religiously aggravated disorderly behavior.
Context of Street Preaching Arrests
Maile’s experience is part of a recurring pattern of legal friction involving street evangelists and the public:
- The Case of Dia Moodley: In Bristol, Pastor Moodley was arrested for “inciting religious hatred” after a public discourse on the differences between Islam and Christianity. Despite Moodley claiming he was the one physically assaulted and threatened by a crowd, he was the only individual taken into custody.
- The Whitechapel Exception: Conversely, some incidents have seen law enforcement prioritize civil liberties. In a widely circulated video from Whitechapel, a police officer refused to arrest a preacher despite pressure from a local crowd, explicitly stating that the individual was exercising his freedom of speech.
The Takeaway: These incidents highlight a significant inconsistency in how “disorderly behavior” is interpreted on the ground, often leaving the line between protected religious expression and public order offenses subject to the discretion of attending officers.
