A 72-year-old Christian evangelist has been found not guilty at the City of London Magistrates’ Court after being prosecuted for distributing a Gospel tract in Soho.

Richard Johnson was prosecuted under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 after distributing copies of an illustrated tract, “Doom Town,” in April 2025.

The tract retells the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah and applies an evangelical Christian message about sin, judgment, repentance and salvation.

Johnson travelled to Old Compton Street in Soho, handing out the tracts, but two people said they were distressed by its treatment of homosexuality and LGBT issues.

One complainant told the court that Soho should be regarded as a “safe space” for LGBT people, arguing that the area ought to be protected from messages viewed as hostile to that community, creating what Johnson’s legal team described as a de facto “gay buffer zone”. It’s believed to be the first time the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) has pursued a prosecution of this kind on the basis of such a geographical “safe space” argument.

Johnson’s barrister, Michael Phillips, argued that the same rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression apply in Soho as in every other part of London, and that the criminal law cannot create areas where lawful speech is judged by a different standard simply because it is unpopular with a particular audience.

Following a one-day trial on 4 September 2026, the magistrates acquitted Johnson of all charges. The court concluded that, although they judged the material to be offensive and had caused upset, the prosecution had not proved all the elements of the criminal offence – in this case the high threshold required before freedom of expression can be restricted.

In his evidence, Johnson said he had been sexually abused at boarding school as a child and later engaged in same-sex sexual activity for many years. He later married and became a born-again Christian. After leaving his former bisexual lifestyle, he said he wanted to tell others of the miracle in his life and the peace he had found and so began evangelising.

Since 2007, Mr Johnson has distributed Christian literature throughout England and Europe. He estimates that he has handed out well over 100,000 Gospel tracts, has had many positive conversations and has seen around ten people become Christians through his evangelism. Before this prosecution, he said he had never been arrested or warned by police for distributing tracts.

Tim Dieppe from Christian Concern told Premier he should never have been prosecuted and that it was “shocking” that the Crown Prosecution Service had pursued a criminal case “merely for handing out tracts in that area calling people to repent and find forgiveness and freedom in Jesus”.

He said the case reasserts the freedom of Christians to preach the gospel on the streets of Britain, adding “we've won dozens and dozens of cases of street preachers where they've been arrested and sometimes prosecuted, and very nearly every single case we've got them cleared. We really need the police to learn a lesson about this: they should be protecting free speech and not arresting people because people complain about them. People have the right to say what they think and to preach the gospel.

“So it's a very encouraging result for freedom of speech and for the freedom of Christians in particular to preach the gospel wherever they want to in this country without fear”.