A Christian pastor who was arrested after he preached from the Bible said yesterday he had been treated ‘shamefully’.

John Sherwood, 71, was led away in handcuffs, questioned in a police station and held overnight after being accused of making homophobic comments outside Uxbridge Station in west London.

The grandfather claimed he was left bruised after police pulled him from a mini-stepladder he was using and cuffed his hands behind his back.

Police said they had received complaints the man had been making ‘allegedly homophobic comments’ and arrested him under the Public Order Act, which can be used under the vague proviso that someone is using ‘abusive or insulting words’ that cause ‘harm’ to someone else. He was later released without charge.

Mr Sherwood, a pastor for 35 years, said: ‘I wasn’t making any homophobic comments, I was just defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. I was only saying what the Bible says – I wasn’t wanting to hurt anyone or cause offence.

‘I was doing what my job description says, which is to preach the gospel in open air as well as in a church building.

‘When the police approached me, I explained that I was exercising my religious liberty and my conscience. I was forcibly pulled down from the steps and suffered some injury to my wrist and to my elbow. I do believe I was treated shamefully. It should never have happened.’

Mr Sherwood, who preaches at an independent evangelical church in north London, was arrested under the Public Order Act for allegedly causing alarm or distress. He was released without charge but a file has now been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for review.

The Metropolitan Police said a member of the public flagged down patrol officers and alleged Mr Sherwood had made homophobic comments.

Mobile phone footage of Friday’s arrest shows Mr Sherwood standing on the stepladder with a Bible in his hand outside a Tube station in Uxbridge, west London. Officers can be heard telling him to get off his steps before they appear to grasp his hands and pull him down.

Onlookers can be heard shouting, ‘He’s an elderly man – take it easy with him’, before officers put Mr Sherwood in handcuffs and take him to a police car.

Mr Sherwood said officers grilled him over his attitude to gay people. He was even asked what he would do if his children were gay. The married father-of-two said: ‘The question was irrelevant to the allegation against me. I said I would seek to bring them to Christ, but of course I would love them no matter what, because they’re my children.’

Andrea Williams, of campaign group Christian Concern, said police needed greater understanding of the law surrounding freedom of speech and religion.

She added: ‘There is an idea that if people are offended you should arrest someone, but in this country we also have freedom of speech.’

A Met Police spokesman said its directorate of professional standards had assessed video footage of Mr Sherwood’s arrest and had found no evidence of misconduct by officers.

A statement posted to a Christian Facebook his supporters read: ‘Whilst he was preaching, he expounded the final verses of Genesis 1, declaring that God’s purpose in creating mankind was to set human beings in families, headed by a father and a mother, not by two fathers, or by two mothers.

‘The distinction within mankind of just two genders, male and female, made in the image of God, constitutes the essence of God’s created order.’

Earlier in the footage, filmed on Friday, two officers can be seen urging the man to step down from the footstool telling him: ‘You’re under arrest.’

The pastor repeatedly refuses, prompting both officers to take him by the hands and guide him down from the steps.

A struggle then ensues as the older man appears to free himself from the police officers’ grip.

Several onlookers, including an older woman and a barking dog jumping into the fray.

The two police officers then struggle to cuff the man as one tells him: ‘I don’t want you getting hurt.’

He is then marched away from the crowd by one of the cops as several onlookers can be seen with their mobile phones out.

A woman behind the camera says: ‘For a man preaching about Christianity, look at how he’s ripping him.’

Pastor Peter Simpson, Minister of Penn Free Methodist Church in Buckinghamshire, who was preaching with Pastor Sherwood before the arrest, said: ‘Everything he said was bible based. He was not saying anything abusive; he is a Christian minister. There did not seem to be any recognition from the police that Christian ministers and such views exist.

‘If there was a Pride parade in Uxbridge, the police would support it even if Christians were offended.

‘You don’t have to be an evangelical Christian to be shocked by this. Anyone who cares about liberty should be concerned about what happened in Uxbridge.

‘This is about defending our Christian civilisation, or what is left of it. The belief in Genesis 1:27 is fundamental to Christian belief.

‘This arrest of a faithful minister for doing nothing other than declaring what the Bible teaches about one of the important moral issues of our time reveals a dangerous assault upon freedom of speech and, not least, upon the freedom of Christian pastors to declare in public all that the Bible teaches. The State has no right to designate that some parts of God’s word are no-go areas.

‘Whatever one’s personal views on homosexuality might be, it is surely pertinent to ask what kind of nation have we become that the minister of a Christian church is arrested for upholding in the public square the very truths which Her Majesty the Queen promised to uphold in her Coronation Oath in 1953, with a Bible in her hand?’

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: ‘Street preaching has a long and honoured history in the UK. In many ways it is symbolic of the kind of freedoms we have treasured in this nation. So to see a 75-year-old pastor arrested in such a manner for preaching the gospel in London is deeply concerning.

‘The laws to protect the freedom to preach in public are very strong. Sadly what we are seeing all too often is police officers who are quick to arrest at the first suggestion that a member of the public is offended, because of the prevailing cancel culture. The Christian Legal Centre has defended dozens of Christian preachers for over a decade and have a 100% success rate on this issue.’

A Met Police spokesman said: ‘At 1.35pm on Friday, April 23, officers on patrol were flagged down by a member of the public who made them aware of a man allegedly making homophobic comments close to Uxbridge Underground Station.

‘A number of other people also approached the officers with concerns about the man’s language.

‘Officers spoke with the 71-year-old man and he was subsequently arrested on suspicion of an offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

‘He was taken to a west London police station and later released under investigation.

‘A file has been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for review and consideration.

‘The Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards [DPS] have since assessed the footage and found no indication of misconduct. The arrest will not be subject to a full DPS review.’

The statement on the Christian page continued: ‘Police officer also spoke to [a second pastor] about homophobic speech.

‘The minister explained that to uphold God’s moral law and speak about the dangers of sin in respect of LGBT issues implies absolutely no hatred or unpleasantness towards any individual or group of people.

‘Nevertheless, the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality is plain.

‘To this the policeman responded that some matters simply cannot be referred to in public places, implying that homosexuality is one of them.

‘The officer also stated that there is no freedom to make statements in public which offend people.

‘[The second pastor] responded that the Police would have no objection whatsoever to a Pride parade being held in Uxbridge, yet that is highly offensive to Bible-believing Christians.’

The statement concludes: ‘This arrest of a faithful preacher for doing nothing other than declaring what the Bible teaches about one of the important moral issues of our time reveals a dangerous assault taking place in modern Britain upon freedom of speech, and not least, upon the freedom of Christian pastors to proclaim in public all that the Bible teaches (see Acts 20:27).’

The pastor has been contacted for comment.

It comes after police recorded a ‘hate incident’ against a retired teacher who wrote a ‘polite’ letter to a campaigner defending a mother’s right to abort a baby with Down’s syndrome.

Douglas Kedge, 85, penned a letter to a woman protesting about an episode of Emmerdale in which a couple decided to terminate a pregnancy after the baby was diagnosed with the genetic disorder.

He wrote that although he understood some may regard having a child with Down’s syndrome as a ‘great privilege and joy’, there are other ‘perfectly decent people’ who may wish to avoid ‘what could well be for them an appalling change in their lives’.

According to the Times, he added: ‘You disgracefully suggest that the reason for the inclusion of this situation in the script is a deliberate attempt to perpetuate prejudice against Down’s syndrome children.’

Former parish council chairman Mr Kedge later received a call from Thames Valley Police to inform him that a record had been made of his involvement in a ‘non-crime hate incident’.

Despite this, officers accepted that the letter was ‘very politely written’.

It followed a complaint by Rachel Mewes, from Northumberland, who had received Mr Kedge’s letter in response to a comment she made in the Times last November.

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