Mr Holme, who is married with two children, was asked to tone down the volume of his sermon as he drove through busy streets in his car and trailer berating homosexuality as a wicked perversion.

He declined, pleading his human rights, but was arrested when a police officer noticed that his trailer bore the slogan: “God says; if you reject Him you may become homosexual.”

Wiltshire police confirmed yesterday they had stopped a man after complaints from the public about his method of preaching, and about a sign on his trailer which many found offensive.

He had declined to withdraw the sign and was arrested under the Public Order Act. He continued preaching in his cell at Salisbury police station.

Yesterday Mr Holme, free but fuming at his arrest, continued to preach his message. “The Bible teaches that any form of sex outside of the marriage bed between a male man and his female wife is an abomination to God.”

He said he wished people “delivered from the bondage of sexual perversion”, but emphasised that he did not intend any violence or evil towards homosexuals.

Last month Mr Holme incurred the wrath of shopkeepers and customers in a Salisbury shopping centre who presented him with a formal request to curb the excessive noise of his oratory, which they claimed could be heard half a mile away.

Six years ago Salisbury magistrates fined Mr Holme £1,050, plus £250 costs, for attempting to preach to a local housing estate from a motorised hang-glider equipped with a megaphone. The case was brought by the Civil Aviation Authority, who claimed he had been flying too close to a populated area, even though his ill-starred flight was at times barely 6ft off the ground.

After his 1998 flight, which narrowly missed bird tables, trees and an electrified fence, Mr Holme said: “I thought that maybe if they heard this voice booming out from the sky, they would think it was God. I wanted to get through to kids on council estates, and I needed some cred.”

Mr Holme, who is an elder at his parish church in Coombe Bissett, Wiltshire, said yesterday: “The purpose of my preaching is to see people come to believe in God and put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. We are not born homosexual; that is logically impossible.”

END