LONDON — In April 2022, the Register reported on the case of Rosa Lalor, who, on Feb. 24, 2021, had left her home in Liverpool, England, to go for a walk. By the end of that walk, the 76-year-old grandmother found herself apprehended and then questioned by police officers — before eventually being fined. 

Her crime: praying silently on a public street. 

She decided to fight the sanction. 

This month, she learned that she had won her appeal. 

Merseyside Police have dropped charges against Lalor on the basis of legal arguments submitted with the support of human-rights group ADF UK. The police force accepted that the grandmother was acting well within her rights to pray while she was walking in a public space. 

They accepted that her actions were reasonable and should not have been curtailed under the then-coronavirus regulations. Furthermore, Merseyside Police accepted that Lalor had a right to pray, as protected by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that everyone has a right to manifest their freedom of thought, conscience and religion, “either alone or in community with others and in public or private.”

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