‘Vindicated’ preacher to sue Met after 18-month battle

A CHRISTIAN preacher is set to sue the Metropolitan Police after being dragged through the courts despite officers acknowledging that her accuser had “goaded” her and that she did not “take the bait”. Hazel Lewis, 49, was arrested while preaching after passers-by falsely claimed that she had called for gays and non-believers to be stabbed.

Despite providing officers with a recording of the afternoon, which they reviewed and found she had not used racist or homophobic abuse, she was charged with a different offence.

Now, after an 18-month legal battle, she has been cleared by a judge who ruled that there was no case to answer as her actual words had not been threatening or abusive.

Miss Lewis, who intends to launch legal action against the police, said: “I am delighted that the judge has seen through the lies and has vindicated me.”

She said that the members of the public “wanted to silence me and twist what I was saying” and the police “seemed that they were determined to prosecute me no matter what”. Miss Lewis was arrested outside Finsbury Park Tube station, north London, in February 2020.

In a statement to her trial at Highbury magistrates’ court last month, officer Stuart Day said one of the men in the video who had accused her “very much sounds like he is trying to goad her into commenting on his sexuality. She does not however take the bait”.

District Judge Julia Newton ruled that there was no case to answer.

Scotland Yard has not yet responded to a request for comment.