Police have apologised to a church minister after officers interrupted a lawful service in Milton Keynes and told him he would be prosecuted for breaking Covid regulations.
Pastor Daniel Mateola normally preaches to a full church, but since communal worship is banned under Covid rules, his congregation gets support from online worship instead.
Services are filmed professionally and streamed online, but last Friday worship was interrupted by the police who said there were too many people present.
To avoid confrontation, the church sent their five musicians home but police said the film crew was too big and called seven more officers as back up.
Pastor Daniel said: “It was very challenging, very intimidating, at one point a little bit scary too. At one point I was thinking, what’s going on here?
“It was intimidating, a little bit scary” A pastor from Milton Keynes tells @itvanglia how he felt when the police turned up to stop an online church service https://t.co/k94wkn3FwP
— Elodie Harper (@ElodieITV) December 1, 2020