The Metropolitan Police has so far not commented on the viral video of a female police officer defending freedom of speech surrounded by a crowd of angry Muslim men in Whitechapel but it has questions to answer.
The Mail ran the video yesterday.
This is fundamentally a Christian country. We will not tolerate “Muslim areas”.
— Sarah Pochin MP (@SarahForRuncorn) February 23, 2026
Credit to this brave police officer. She was defending a Christian’s right to free speech after being told it was a Muslim area. pic.twitter.com/dQChwP3Ecz
??? “The Risk is they could be assaulted – The fact it’s a very heavily Muslim orientated community”
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) February 20, 2026
“There are cameras everywhere and this is already a well patrolled area”
Wow – this is the second half of the viral Police Officer in London – dealing with a crowd of Muslims… pic.twitter.com/sAzjISECWO
This is the moment a police officer defends a Christian preacher in Whitechapel and is told: “This is a Muslim area.”
The confrontation sees a female Met Police officer being surrounded by males and telling them: “In this country, we have freedom of speech.”
She continued: “I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don’t listen to him. He’s not in your home.”
Questions for the Met include: why is it that this police officer understands English law in a way that the three Met police officers who arrested Christian street preacher, John Sherwood, in Uxbridge in 2021 apparently did not?
In 2022, Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court acquitted Pastor Sherwood of the public order offence with which the Crown Prosecution Service had charged him. The court upheld his freedom “to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority” as set out in Article 10 of the 1998 Human Rights Act.
Christian Today reported on the case at the time:
On April 23rd 2021 Metropolitan police officers arrested the pastor near Uxbridge tube station.
He had been preaching on Genesis 1 verse 27 and said that the family unit as ordained by God consisted of a father and a mother, not two fathers or two mothers.
Some passers-by complained to the police that he was using homophobic hate speech.
The pastor, then 71, was arrested, held overnight at a police station and in September was charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which outlaws “threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress”.
Is it not the case that if the police officer involved in the Whitechapel confrontation had been called to the scene in Uxbridge in 2021, the Met would not have suffered the humiliation of losing in court? Pastor Sherwood would never have been arrested in the first place.
The question now arises for the Met: will the exemplary and courageous conduct of this police officer be used in training sessions for officers and recruits on how to deal with vexatious anti-free-speech complaints against Christian street preachers and others who are lawfully expressing their views in public?
Furthermore, how does the Met reward frontline police officers who earn the respect of the law-abiding public in the way that this particular officer has for defending traditional British freedom of speech?
The Met might be advised to review the exchange between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office last year.
After Vance raised concerns about infringements to freedom of speech in the UK, Starmer said:
We’ve had free speech for a very very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very very long time. … In relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there.
Is the Met similarly proud of the UK’s free speech history? If so, surely it would be keen to answer the questions above.
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