The Clash of Religious Freedom and Public Nuisance in Colchester

The policing of Christian preaching and the dangerous confusion between public nuisance and religious offence

A dispute between Colchester City Council and an evangelical congregation has exposed a question considerably more serious than the permissible volume of a street preacher’s loudspeaker. When Christian teaching about sin, judgement and hell is cited as a cause of public alarm and distress, the distinction between protecting the public from unreasonable conduct and protecting it from unwelcome religious truth becomes dangerously uncertain.

An English council cannot abolish the Last Judgement. It can, however, include the preaching of that judgement among the reasons for imposing restrictions upon those who proclaim it. That is what makes the case of Bread of Life Community Church in Colchester so significant. A dispute which ostensibly began over amplified sound has developed into a legal confrontation in which the content of Christian preaching has itself become part of the official justification for regulatory intervention. The resulting question is not whether Christians possess an unlimited right to disturb their neighbours, but whether the expression of doctrines which some people find disturbing may itself be classified as antisocial conduct.

Bread of Life Community Church, an evangelical congregation whose pastor is Stephen Clayden, has conducted regular outreach in Colchester city centre since 2022. Its members preach, sing hymns, distribute Bibles and Christian literature, and offer prayer and practical assistance. Following complaints about noise and behaviour, Colchester City Council issued a Community Protection Warning in November 2025 and subsequently a Community Protection Notice in March 2026. The notice prohibits amplified equipment and what is described as “engaging or intimidating behaviour” towards members of the public. More remarkably, according to the church’s legal representatives, the notice expressly refers to religious messaging concerning hell as having caused harassment, alarm and distress.¹

The congregation, represented by the Christian Legal Centre, denies intimidation or unlawful conduct and has appealed against the notice. Its hearing, scheduled for 22 October, was postponed because of judicial unavailability, with no replacement date announced at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the council maintains that it received repeated complaints, attempted to resolve the situation through engagement and warnings, and acted only after the complaints continued. These competing accounts deserve proper examination. The existence of a complaint does not prove misconduct, but neither does the sincerity of a preacher establish that his conduct was necessarily reasonable. The essential question is whether the restrictions imposed are justified by demonstrable behaviour or influenced by official disapproval of the religious message itself.²

Under section 43 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, a Community Protection Notice may be issued against an individual or an organisation where there are reasonable grounds to conclude that persistent or continuing conduct has a detrimental effect on the quality of life of people in the locality and is unreasonable. The legislation also requires the restrictions imposed to be reasonable in addressing that detrimental effect. Such powers have a legitimate purpose. Residents and businesses ought not to endure persistent excessive noise, obstruction, harassment or threatening behaviour merely because those responsible claim a religious motivation. Yet the legislation does not convert personal offence at an expressed belief into proof of unreasonable conduct. Nor does the frequency with which a lawful activity is undertaken establish that its repetition is antisocial.³

The council’s own explanation acknowledges complaints about conduct causing alarm and distress, while the church’s lawyers maintain that the notice extends beyond matters of amplification. According to their account, it contains no geographical limitation, measurable volume threshold or expiry date, and leaves the prohibited behaviour insufficiently defined. The exact wording and evidential basis of the notice will therefore be central to the appeal. An authority which wishes to regulate excessive sound can ordinarily explain what disturbance occurred and why the particular restriction is necessary. Where its intervention also refers to the theological content of preaching, however, the justification becomes considerably more difficult. A prohibition on unreasonable noise is one thing; an official expectation that Christian preaching should cease to trouble the conscience is quite another.⁴

There is a fundamental difference between warning mankind of divine judgement and threatening an identifiable individual. A preacher who persistently follows, corners or abuses a passer-by may properly be required to desist. Someone who presumes to declare that a particular child or adult is certainly damned demonstrates neither sound theology nor pastoral prudence. The Church teaches the reality of hell, but does not authorise individual evangelists to pronounce definitive judgements upon the eternal destiny of strangers. These distinctions are especially important where children are concerned. Yet they cannot be used to remove the doctrine of judgement from public proclamation altogether. To teach that unrepented mortal sin endangers the soul is not the same as threatening somebody with violence, and the mere fact that a listener dislikes that teaching cannot settle the question of harassment.

The difficulty lies in the increasingly elastic application of concepts such as alarm, distress and psychological discomfort. Properly understood, such terms may describe genuine harm. Used without adequate distinction, however, they can allow the emotional response of a listener to become the measure of whether an otherwise lawful opinion may be expressed. A person may feel distressed by hearing that his conduct is sinful, just as another may feel distressed by a public denunciation of his political opinions, moral convictions or religious beliefs. Public disagreement frequently occasions discomfort because it challenges the assumptions by which people live. If the existence of that discomfort is treated as sufficient justification for official restraint, freedom of expression becomes conditional upon the sensitivities of whoever objects most strongly.

This is precisely why the case cannot be reduced to a contest between religion and public safety. It raises the question of whether public authorities are applying a consistent distinction between conduct and content. The Human Rights Act protects freedom of religious manifestation and freedom of expression under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Neither protection is unlimited, and restrictions may be justified where they are lawful, necessary and proportionate to legitimate aims, including the protection of others. But the requirement of proportionality is crucial. An authority must address the conduct responsible for a demonstrable problem rather than unnecessarily suppress the expression of a protected belief. To prohibit an abusive method of addressing the public may be defensible; to discourage references to hell because the doctrine itself causes offence raises an entirely different question.⁵

British law has already recognised the importance of that distinction. In Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999), a case concerning Christian street preaching and an alleged breach of the peace, Lord Justice Sedley observed that freedom confined to inoffensive speech was hardly worth possessing. His judgement affirmed the protection of expression which is contentious, unwelcome and provocative, subject to the relevant legal limits. That case did not concern Community Protection Notices, and its reasoning cannot determine the outcome of the Colchester appeal. Nevertheless, its underlying principle remains pertinent: the state must not confuse the public’s disagreement with a message with unlawful conduct by the person delivering it.⁶

For Catholics, the matter possesses a still deeper significance because the doctrine at issue belongs to the substance of divine revelation. Our Lord did not confine His preaching to propositions calculated to reassure His hearers. He warned of eternal punishment, spoke repeatedly of hell, demanded repentance and described the final separation of the just from the wicked. In St Matthew’s Gospel He declared: “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). In the account of the Last Judgement, He spoke equally plainly of everlasting punishment and everlasting life (Matthew 25:46). These are not embarrassing survivals from an earlier religious culture, dispensable once society develops more agreeable moral sensibilities. They are words of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, the contemporary tendency to treat warnings of judgement as incompatible with compassion rests upon a serious theological misunderstanding. Divine mercy does not render judgement irrelevant; it offers salvation from the consequences of sin. Our Lord’s warnings are inseparable from His desire for the conversion of sinners. The physician who refuses to disclose the seriousness of a disease cannot claim superior compassion merely because the patient has been spared distressing information. Similarly, an evangelisation which systematically conceals the possibility of eternal loss deprives the proclamation of redemption of much of its meaning. Christianity announces salvation, not simply reassurance. Its message is good news precisely because fallen mankind stands in need of a Saviour.

This truth has become particularly uncomfortable in a culture which increasingly identifies compassion with affirmation. Under that conception, to challenge another person’s moral choices may appear inherently uncharitable, while to affirm his existing understanding of himself is treated as the highest expression of respect. Yet charity in the Christian understanding is ordered towards the true good of the person, ultimately his eternal salvation. To withhold necessary truth merely because it may disturb an individual’s present contentment is not necessarily an act of kindness. Naturally, truth must be proclaimed with prudence, humility and genuine concern for the hearer; nevertheless, the obligation of charity cannot be fulfilled by suppressing those parts of revelation which modern sensibilities find most disagreeable.

The controversy is especially pertinent as the Church approaches the feast of Christ the King. In Quas Primas, Pius XI condemned the exclusion of Christ from public life and the confinement of religion to the private sphere. His teaching was not simply that individual believers should acknowledge Christ inwardly, but that His sovereignty extends to mankind’s social and political existence. The state possesses legitimate authority within its own sphere, but it does not possess authority to determine which divine truths may be proclaimed or to subordinate the supernatural purpose of religion to prevailing social preferences. The public profession of Christianity is not an accidental or dispensable feature of the faith. It follows from the command of Christ to teach all nations and from the recognition that His kingship is neither geographically nor socially confined.⁷

The significance of Colchester therefore extends beyond the circumstances of one evangelical congregation. Catholics need not share Bread of Life Community Church’s ecclesiology, theological interpretations or particular methods of evangelisation to recognise the principles at stake. Nor does defending the lawful public proclamation of Christian beliefs require treating every religious claim as equally true. It requires recognising that civil authority cannot be permitted to make the acceptability of Christian doctrine dependent upon the absence of objections from those who hear it. A society which protects religion only when it remains private, innocuous or agreeable has already substantially diminished the freedom it professes to guarantee.

There is also an uncomfortable implication for those within the Church who have become accustomed to presenting Christianity chiefly through the language of social inclusion, community cohesion and emotional reassurance. The Gospel certainly commands charity towards the poor, the marginalised and the suffering, and the Church’s works of mercy are indispensable expressions of her supernatural mission. But that mission cannot be reduced to activities which public authorities and secular institutions happen to approve. The same Christ who commanded His disciples to feed the hungry also commanded them to preach repentance. The modern temptation is to retain the charitable works while allowing the doctrines which give them their ultimate meaning to disappear from public view. The Colchester controversy illustrates how readily Christian activity may be welcomed as a contribution to social welfare while its proclamation of uncomfortable supernatural realities becomes the subject of official concern.

The magistrates must determine the facts of this particular dispute. If there is reliable evidence of persistent unreasonable noise, intimidation or harassment, proportionate action against that conduct may be justified. If, however, the objection is substantially that members of the public are distressed by being reminded of sin, judgement and hell, the matter concerns something far more consequential than the use of a loudspeaker. A local authority has no commission to make the Christian message conform to the emotional expectations of contemporary society, and the powers entrusted to it for maintaining public order must not become instruments for that purpose.

The final irony is that the doctrine causing such controversy is itself an announcement of man’s accountability before an authority infinitely greater than the state. Christianity teaches that individuals, communities and rulers alike will answer to God for their actions. A council may possess the legal means to restrain unreasonable behaviour in a public street, but its jurisdiction does not extend to determining the content of divine revelation. The state may regulate noise. It cannot revise the Gospel.