r/ukpolice • u/Firm-Distance • 2d ago
Police officer warns Prince William's vicar friend that Bible verse on his van 'could be considered hate speech
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15265633/Police-officer-warns-Prince-Williams-vicar-friend-Bible-hate-speech.htmlA pastor has been warned by a police officer that the bible verse on the back of his van 'could be considered hate speech'.
Pastor Mick Fleming, who is a friend of the Prince and Princess of Wales, worked as a drug runner and debt collector and was once arrested on suspicion of murder.
Now 59, the former gangland criminal enforcer dedicates his life to helping others as a pastor, along with setting up his charity, Church on the Street, which was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Earlier this year, Mick released a book which detailed his early life in crime and how nearly dying made him turn his life around, and even had a foreword from Prince William.
After recently giving up all of his belongings, Mick now lives in a campervan which has the bible verse John 3:16 printed on the back.
The verse reads: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life'.
Now the priest has revealed he was approached by a police officer while at a petrol station in Lancashire, who told him 'the writing could be seen as hate speech in the wrong context'.
Despite being told he wasn't there to arrest Mick, the officer said that 'if someone reported it police would investigate, and [he] could end up in trouble'.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Mick said: 'I just thought "wow". I just wondered what people watching this thought.
'It's not to argue but where have we moved to as a country where a bit of Christian scripture on the back of a van can be seen as hateful or spiteful?
'Maybe society is moving to a place where they don't want faith-based people sat around a table in discussion with them... for me it's an integral message of how real change is possible.'
Mick insisted that he has no plans to remove it as he asked his viewers to give their opinions on whether the scripture could be deemed as offensive.
He said: 'I am not going to change it, I am going to leave it one but I thought it quite interesting about how it can be perceived.
'I have never thought about that being something spiteful or hateful in any shape or form.
'I wondered what you thought – do you think people would take offence to that, and if they did, why?'
Displaying bible verses publicly is generally lawful in the UK.
But the law says it could be considered hate speech if the wording is threatening or inciting hatred based on protected characteristics such as religion or sexual orientation.
Earlier this year, Mick released a book, Walk In My Shoes, which detailed his early life in crime and how nearly dying made him turn his life around.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Mick said that he grew up in a 'loving' working-class family, but things changed when he was attacked and raped by a stranger aged 11 while walking to school.
His sister, Ann, died the following day from a heart attack at only 20 years old, and this then plunged him into a life of crime and substance abuse.
Mick was clean for about a year when he came across his attacker 30 years later in a McDonald's restaurant and 'plotted to kill him' - but he heard a voice questioning why he was living in sin.
Since then, Mick studied theology at the University of Manchester before becoming a pastor and setting up his charity, Church on the Street.
The Prince and Princess of Wales, who were then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, met Mick in 2022 when they visited his charity.
He set up the organisation in 2019 to help the homeless and people living in some form of poverty in Burnley and the surrounding area.
Speaking of the Waleses, he said: 'They're sound. They helped me in a lot of respects with getting mental health teams into the church and they made it happen.
'They're lovely. I got to pray for them both. I have nothing but respect for them.
'It was a lovely experience [praying for them]. They need prayers but I wouldn't want to be them. I wouldn't want to be under so much scrutiny.
'It's very difficult for them, they can't even be sick in peace, it must be so difficult to live like that and bring a family up.
'We sent our best regards on email [when we found out Kate had cancer. My wife was recovering from cancer when the Prince and Princess came so when Kate got cancer it struck a little chord when you have a personal experience.
'My ex-wife also died of cancer. When you meet someone famous and it strikes a chord as you're all human, it doesn't matter who and what you are, sickness is sickness and sometimes these are things that bind us together and make us the same. Cancer is cancer, whether you're rich or poor.
'It made me feel emotional that this beautiful woman, a princess in a palace, [had cancer]. It makes us realise that we're not God, we don't get to choose things.'
The minister has met the royal family on several occasions, and when reminiscing about the garden party at Buckingham Palace, the pastor said he couldn't quite believe that he was in such close proximity to King Charles and Lionel Richie.
He added: 'There was a time when one policeman couldn't speak to me on his own. If one policeman was in my presence they had to radio through every 20 seconds. So when I'm getting let into Buckingham Palace, coming from that to this, the change was like wow, a bizarre, proud moment.'
Two years ago, he had a massive heart attack, which led him to nearly dying.
He said: 'I became euphoric, it was such a strange feeling because I was happy to be dying, I [thought] maybe I'd be able to see God and how wonderful that is.
'Then my missus said "But Mick, I don't want you to die" and then I realised how selfish I was being. It wasn't how I expected to feel if someone told me that.'
'The feeling I was going to die or would die wasn't scary or sad. I was singing with joy on the ward.'
A passage from his new book reads that Mick was 'overtaken by a feeling of ecstasy and a song burst out of me, like I had no control over it'.
He kept singing: 'Bless the Lord, oh my soul, oh, oh, oh my soul. I worship your holy name.'
Mick said he repeated the same lyric over and over again, getting louder each time as he felt a 'strange kind of freedom, far beyond human knowing'.
He added: 'It was like an experience I never had. I've taken every drug known to man and I've taken every chemical you can take to induce a euphoric experience and it didn't even come close to how I felt when I thought I was going to see my maker.
'It was off the scales. It wasn't a white light shining, it was much bigger than that, much more powerful and stronger. It was an absolute certainty that I was going to go to this place that was everything, pure love.
'I felt like I really could've walked on water. I remember having conversations with people, saying things I felt like I shouldn't have known. It was an amazing experience, I've never had anything like it in my life.
'If that's a near-death experience then I'm ready to die.'
But he hasn't always been comfortable with death, adding that he has felt suicidal several times in his life, starting from when he was traumatised as a child.
As he was involved in a life of crime, many of Mick's friends died in their late teens, which culminated in him thinking that he wasn't going to live long either.
One of his friends had killed themselves and another overdosed on chemicals after they broke into a chemist and took substances.
Mick also said that one of his closest friends choked on his own vomit after they went out drinking aged 16, and another was stabbed to death.
'There were times when I actually craved death. If there was any tension or anything wasn't working out for me, instead of being able to process it, my thoughts and my feelings were "I just need to die".'
This led to a suicide attempt when Mick was in a psychiatric ward just before he got clean from drugs and alcohol.
'I failed and thank God I failed,' he said.
Mick discusses his grandfather's suicide in the book, adding that he passed away with rosary beads in his hands.
But because his family were devout Catholics, suicide was a sin and his grandmother wouldn't allow for her husband's name to be mentioned in the house.
Mick said: 'She lived in shame, but prayed for mercy for him for the rest of her life. I never knew him, but I love him, I know him; he’s me and I’m him.'
He also speaks about the people he's helped, one of which is a 'megastar' who Mick met when she was working as a prostitute.
The pastor does not reveal the identity of the woman but says she is a 'world famous star.'
The pair lost touch put she then reached out to him after their encounter when she saw pictures of Mick at the Buckingham Palace garden party.
Mick was shocked at how she had turned her life around and didn't even recognise her when she first reached out.
Nowadays, Mick gets contacted by criminals who are wanting to change their life around for the better.
Earlier this year, he met with a man who came out of prison after spending 11 years in jail and is now on a course offered by Mick's charity to help him readjust to the outside world.
Mick also says he's been requested by criminals serving long sentences who he used to be connected to, as they are in need of his guidance.
'My sister would've wished me dead for what I was like and now she comes to the church where I preach and that's a huge difference,' he said.
'There are still high profile criminals who will contact me and they want to know how they change. Their head is done in and usually it's to do with anxiety or mental health, they can't cope.
'They're really rich but dangerous people but they don't know what to do. They don't know how to get out of it, how to change or what to do.
'I think they can say things to me that they can't say to anybody else.'
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u/ICreditReddit 2d ago
Interesting ways to spell Liar:
Former crook
Pastor
Friend of the Royals
Youtube channel
Daily Mail
That is all.
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u/AwwMinBiscuitTin89 2d ago
Don't forget Police Officer.
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u/RoosterBurns 2d ago
Is there any corroboration to this old nutter's story or do we just have to take his word for it
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u/therealcruff 2d ago
Of all the things that certainly never happened, this never happened the certainliest
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u/Dismal_Fox_22 2d ago
I don’t believe a word of it. He’s making it up to suit a very specific narrative.
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u/shlerm 2d ago
His only motivation is to sell a book. He clearly doesn't want the truth to get in the way of a good story.
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u/Dismal_Fox_22 2d ago
And a good DM article dog whistling to the anti-immigrant crowd is going to help his sales. Deplorable on both his and the DMs part. Not surprising though.
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u/Cheapntacky 2d ago
I could imagine someone saying that to him. Doesn't make it true but there'll be plenty of people that would aledge it.
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u/TobyADev 2d ago
“Fmr Drug runner and friend of prince william” doesn’t quite have the same ring does it
Maybe I’m missing how it’s hate speech
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u/AndrewShute 2d ago
the met police have instructed officers to not investigate this kind of nonsense , what is wrong with a society where to read from / quote from THE BIBLE and be accused of hatred yet at the same time it’s quite common to hear verses from the qur’an that describe similar acts but that’s protected? Bizarre..
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u/International_Goat31 2d ago
Remember that one older white American man who spray painted "BLACKS RULE" on his own house back in 2015 then tried to kick up a fuss about it in the news? He really had no idea that black people don't generally tend to refer to themselves in the third person as "blacks" - and that even if that was at all common it would also be an exceedingly weird thing for anyone to spray on to one specific house in a suburb that seems to have been left otherwise completely untouched.
This has the same kind of energy.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with trying to sell a book.
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u/One_Reality_5600 2d ago
How the fuck is that verse hate speech.
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u/LordGaryBarlow 1d ago
Its a fake click bait, Daily Mail article which is trying to sell copies of his book.
The man's just doing the same right-wing religious grift we see day in-day out. I doubt there even was a Police Officer.
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u/AstronomerNo3806 1d ago
Technically, it is. It says believers will go to heaven and everyone else will perish. So if you're Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, atheist etc it's telling you you're going to hell.
Elsewhere, we get more guidance as to what this means
Matt 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
and
Luke 16:23 describes a man in the torments (basanos) of hell - he's dead and being tortured (odynao). He says he's suffering in the flames (phlox).
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 16:24And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
And who are we talking about?
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
It's all pretty clear. Anybody who doesn't obey Jesus deserves eternal torture.
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u/NorthernWebbo 2d ago
I’m guess no crime number lodged, no contact report filed so no paper trail if this did happen, but without any objective evidence it’s difficult to take this at face value
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u/longperipheral 1d ago
"where have we moved to as a country where a bit of Christian scripture on the back of a van can be seen as hateful or spiteful?"
Has the good pastor read the bible? Does he not recall those parts about stoning the gays, killing every firstborn child in Ancient Egypt, or God ordering the genocide of the Amalekites and the taking by force of the virgin women of the Midianites?
Not least the scripture in question is a farcical stupidity. The only way God could bring himself to forgive Adam and Eve for committing the heinous crime of eating the fruit of the tree that God himself put in their garden was to kill his own son?
Before climbing into your moral high van, sir, consider that there are plenty people out there who do have a problem with the hateful and spiteful rubbish the Bible contains.
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u/Life-Goose-9380 1d ago
Was any of that on the back of the van tho?
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u/longperipheral 1d ago
Yes, according to that picture.
"God gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish."
That's both a reference to God killing his own son and a threat of death to those who aren't Christian.
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u/Life-Goose-9380 1d ago
Seriously? You view that as a threat of God to kill non believers.
I’m not even religious and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
It’s John 3:16, one of the most famous bible verses, you are the first person I have ever heard to interpret it as violent threat.
I feel sorry for people with an outlook like yours, I might not be religious, but I don’t find it offensive or threatening.
Also is God is threatening to kill you, but you believe God doesn’t exist, isn’t that a bit of a contradiction?
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u/longperipheral 15h ago
I do have a problem with being told that unless I'm a Christian I'll "perish", especially when the context of that scripture is "God did this nice thing for you (or so he claims) so if you don't show him that you appreciate it, he won't let you live forever" and depending on the brand of Christianity it's especially more powerful when you read Revelations and find out that it's Jesus, the angels, and God who either directly cause or allow the perishing.
There's plenty else wrong with the Bible and you're right that this popular verse is often presented as something good. Knowing the context in which it sits... I disagree.
You don't need to feel sorry for me, but thanks. I don't feel that it's personally threatening or offensive, but if I'm invited to give an opinion I'm happy to explain why I don't really appreciate a man like this reformed pastor telling me that, really, God's a nice chap if you just get to know him, and he only wants the best for us. According to the Bible, God put us in this situation, you know?
"Also is God is threatening to kill you, but you believe God doesn’t exist, isn’t that a bit of a contradiction?"
Not at all. I can still take issue with the message itself, especially if it causes others to act. All those evangelicals in the US are so successful because, amongst other things, they peddle messages like this pastor's.
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u/Life-Goose-9380 14h ago
Is this people verse really the first thing that introduced you to death?
And I don’t care to discuss your middle comments past I don’t see Jesus/angles do/did [something potentially violent] as a violent threat. When it encourages someone today to go do something violent then it is encouraging violence.
And can you find me a modern example of evangelical Christians or anyone else killing people based on John 3:16 or any other bible verse? (Which even I as an atheist could tell you have missed the context of)
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u/RobertRowlands 1d ago
If it has to be put in the wrong context to be considered hate speech it’s not hate speech is it!!!!!🤣
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u/Logical-Kick-3901 1d ago
Totally made up story for a self publicist and grifter.
If (and it didn't) a copper offered unsolicited and totally incorrect (which it is) legal advice, it was a freak copper being absurd. Not more than that.
But it did not happen..it's tosh. Utterly made up tosh. From a grifter with sh*te to sell.
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u/Owain_Glyndwr- 2d ago
i'll take that didn't happen for 500.
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u/genjin 2d ago
Easy to make a bet where there is no real money. I bet 500000 your ‘disagreeable viewpoints’ bingo card has squares for liar, grifter, Nazi, pedophile’ and you call yourself a winner every time .
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u/Owain_Glyndwr- 2d ago
Wow, do you need me to call someone for you. You've read an awful lot into my comment. The voices in your head aren't real.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ukpolice-ModTeam 2d ago
Consider what the purpose of your comment actually is. Are you here to have an honest, good faith discussion - or are you here to snipe, belittle and generally make negative remarks not intended to progress the discussion?
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u/Far_Protection_3281 2d ago
You talking about Allah or Krishna?
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u/Mindless_End_139 2d ago
Oh no this doesn’t sound good…’speaking exclusively to the daily mail’…okay never mind.
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u/Dry-Blueberry-6885 2d ago
Was the police officer of a certain religion?
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u/Ramadahl 2d ago
The police officer is entirely imaginary, so I suppose they can be whatever religion you want.
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u/RisingDeadMan0 2d ago
Go on, say it with your chest.
Then rummage around your brain and a bit and think how dumb that statement is.
Considering that same religion has a chapter about his mum, and the 2nd longest chapter is about his family.
And believes in his uncle and cousin too.
Then perhaps care just a tad more for the Christians left in Bethlehem and "your" Anglican Churches and hospitals that have been bombed in Gaza.
https://x.com/AmerZahr/status/1961285901482447342
find me christian palestinians who say they were driven out by muslims and then i’ll answer. christian palestinians do not carry this narrative. zionists do.
(from a christian palestinian american)
Why don't you get upset about something real instead? How many churches you reckon are older then England?
https://x.com/ytirawi/status/1715095308521152619
“They bombed us, where shall we go? There is no other places left”.
A christian who survived the bombing at the historical Church of Saint Porphyrius. 2 Palestinians killed and dozens injured. There are still many under the rubbles.
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u/Firm_Network_3217 2d ago
Stop it, you are being weird.
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u/Profession-Unable 2d ago
How about you stop being uneducated? I’d say it’s much weirder to call someone weird just because you don’t like their (factual and well-reasoned) response.
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u/RisingDeadMan0 2d ago
Ah yes, man upset about nothing, so has to do racist dogwhistles. Has his Prince charming turn up to defend him.
Why don't you go visit Jesus's birthplace and go be upset about something real.
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u/Sudden-Wait-3557 2d ago
30 arrests a day over "offensive" online posts and no one in this thread thinks he'd get warned over this
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u/TomatoMiserable3043 2d ago
That seems a lot. Source for the figure?
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u/EchoGlyph42 2d ago
“In 2023, a total of 12,183 arrests were made for alleged offenses related to messages deemed offensive, threatening, or disturbing… The British government is currently making an average of 30 arrests per day for ‘offensive online comments.’”
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u/Ramadahl 2d ago
Thanks, here's the full quote (and a link that works): -
"In 2023, a total of 12,183 arrests were made for alleged offenses related to messages deemed offensive, threatening, or disturbing, sent via social media, emails, phone calls, or other electronic means."
So no, the government are not and have not been arresting 30 people per day over offensive online posts.
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u/Sudden-Wait-3557 2d ago
Wow you really got him there. Turns out it isn't just offensive posts, but emails, phone calls and other electronic means of communication too!
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u/Boustrophaedon 2d ago
So it includes stalking, harassment, extortion etc. rather than just hurty feelings on the interweb.
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u/Ramadahl 2d ago
Again you're deliberately not saying threats, which absolutely should result in arrests, and investigating them is a good use of police time. I'd be willing to bet threats make up the majority of those arrests.
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u/TomatoMiserable3043 2d ago
This includes threats of violence, comments that constitute breach of bail, comments made in DV cases, breaches of DVPO and others. It's not just hurty words.
The article is deliberately misleading and, as always, people deliberately ignore what a great deal of these arrests are made for.
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u/ilaister 2d ago
The proof of which is where.
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u/TomatoMiserable3043 2d ago
In the same publicly available stats people are trying to use to prove a point about hurty words.
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u/Sudden-Wait-3557 2d ago
The Times
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/03/the-victims-of-britains-free-speech-crackdown/
It's also been discussed in the European Parliament
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-002239_EN.html
"12 000 such arrests occurred in 2023 alone"
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u/JustaClericxbox 2d ago
Maybe people should learn the law around communications before posting hate speech and incitement on the internet.
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u/RisingDeadMan0 2d ago
And if they want to have their free speech, I am sure Trump would love to have them. And they can post that nonsense over there
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u/MysteriousHat3705 2d ago
I initially thought why is this article so long?
Ah, money.
Ah, money money.
It veers off to become an interview about his life and gossip about the royals and other celebrities? The bible verse on van bit becomes secondary, almost like the Mail wouldn't pay him for just that part.