THE police force that charged a man for shouting “Who elected him?” at the proclamation ceremony of the King, in Oxford, has admitted wrongful arrest.
Symon Hill had been walking home from his church — New Road Baptist Church, Oxford — on the morning of Sunday 11 September 2022, when he encountered a crowd gathered to hear the proclamation of the King.
He shouted “Who elected him?”, and was ordered to be quiet by private security guards. When Mr Hill asked them what authority they had, the guards pushed him back, and police officers intervened.
Mr Hill was arrested and led away in handcuffs, and later charged with the offence, under the Public Order Act, of using “threatening or abusive words or behaviour”; but, in January 2023, the charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (Comment, 27 January 2023).
Thames Valley Police has now admitted wrongful arrest, after Mr Hill challenged the legality of their actions in a case supported by the civil-rights charity Liberty.
According to Liberty, bodycam footage from the officers captured one of them saying, “But we do need to fine or de-arrest as we will get a complaint off the back of this.”
Mr Hill said in a statement: “It has taken the police two and a half years to recognise that expressing an opinion in the street is not a crime. Opposing the monarchy is not a crime.”
The case was not about him, he said, but about “the rights of all people to dissent, to express their views, to refuse to bow down, to assert the dignity and equality of all human beings. With the vague anti-protest laws as they are, anybody could face arrest for expressing an opinion in a public space. The law must be changed and the police must be held to account.”
Before the Coronation of the King, Mr Hill, who is training as a Baptist minister, argued that “faithfulness to the Kingdom of God requires rejection of the kingdoms of this world” (Comment, 28 April 2023).
The Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Ben Snuggs, said in a statement that the force had settled a claim with Mr Hill, “and accepted that the grounds of the offence for which he was arrested were unlawful.
“Public order and public safety operations are a key part of policing and it’s important we use these circumstances to help shape our future response,” Mr Snuggs said.
Mr Hill has reportedly been paid £2500 in compensation.
