An evangelical Belfast preacher was grossly offensive in making a pulpit declaration that he doesn’t trust a single Muslim, a court heard on Monday.
Prosecutors claim Pastor James McConnell’s “unrepentant” characterisation of an entire religion has no legal protection. The 78-year-old clergyman is on trial over the contents of an internet-broadcast sermon were he branded Islam “satanic” and “heathen”.
More than 100 of his supporters packed a public gallery at Belfast Magistrates’ Court for the start of the hearing. The preacher denies improper use of a public electronic communications network, and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network.
Both charges centre on comments made at his Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in north Belfast in May last year. He defended his views at the time, but, following a public outcry, he later apologised for any offence or distress caused.
As the case opened, defence barrister Philip Mateer QC called on the prosecution to identify the specific alleged offence. “My client should not be at the start of his trial in a state of mystification as to precisely what it is within the sermon that’s supposed to be criminal.”
Prompted by District Judge Liam McNally, prosecution counsel David Russell claimed the clergyman had made remarks aggravated by hostility.
When the preacher stated “Islam is heathen . . . Islam is satanic . . . Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell” his views are protected by Articles 9 and 10, the prosecutor said. But those comments, he contended, formed part of the context for other remarks. The court heard how Pastor McConnell declared: “People say there are good Muslims in Britain – that may be so – but I don’t trust them.”
Mr Russell contended those remarks were central to the case against him. “He’s saying ‘I don’t trust a single Muslim’,” the barrister claimed.
As the allegation was made against the preacher, he shouted out from a back row of Courtroom 12: “No.”
However, prosecution counsel continued: “He characterised the followers of an entire religion in a certain stereotypical way, that is grossly offensive and that is not protected by saying it from the pulpit. It wouldn’t be protected whether it was said about members of the Christian faith, the Jewish faith, Protestants, Catholics or members of the Muslim faith. That is the portion that is grossly offensive. It has nothing to do with his freedom of expression or his freedom to preach.”
The trial continues.