But Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang could still pay a high price for a false accusation

Last week, they were cleared of insulting a Muslim guest when high-profile ‘hate crime’ allegations were thrown out by a judge to public applause. But, faced with £400,000 of debt and the wreckage of a business they say has been all but destroyed by the controversy, there has been little celebration for Ben and Sharon – just bewilderment at the way they have been treated.

The experience has left them questioning their faith in the police, in the Crown Prosecution Service and in a British establishment that seems bent on protecting all manner of rights and sensitivities. Unless, that is, you are a church-going Christian.

It has done little to improve their confidence in the way their case was handled to learn that Detective Constable Tracy O’Hara, the officer who played a leading role in the prosecution for the unusual crime of religiously aggravated harassment and took charge of their interrogation, is a leading light in the Merseyside Police Gay And Lesbian Support Network.

‘It was a nightmare we couldn’t wake up from,’ said Sharon, speaking for the first time since their disturbing ordeal began eight months ago. ‘We are ordinary, hard-working people. We are also law-abiding and we have always had faith in the law and the police. They are supposed to protect standards of decency. Now we feel betrayed.’

Even today, the Vogelenzangs are cautious in what they say – understandably so. They have received abusive emails and threats of violence and are anxious to return to some semblance of normality. But there is no disguising their shock at a turn of events that has come close to ruining them.

‘The whole thing has been a stomach-churning experience. It has upset us and our family physically,’ said Ben. ‘We think the Christian faith is being targeted by those in authority and that we have been thrown to the lions.

‘It is all to do with political correctness. Minority groups seem to be treated fairly, but people like us in the majority groups are being pushed to one side. It is completely unbalanced.’

The Vogelenzangs are not the sort of people who normally find themselves in police stations. Indeed, they appear to be model citizens. They married 26 years ago after meeting at a church music class. Both belong to the Elim Pentecostal Church, where faith is expressed fervently, although neither would set out to make converts and there is certainly no religious paraphernalia on view in Bounty House.

Ben, now 53, had been working in an aluminium factory in the Dutch town of Harderwijk when, in 1977, he travelled to Liverpool in the hope of bettering himself.

Burly and physically imposing, but affable, he still speaks with a strong accent that even friends and family find difficult to understand. It was on his second day in this country that he met Sharon, now 54, who was then a secretary for a company director.

Realising they were unable to have children of their own, they adopted five children, all now grown up, and have fostered ten others over five years, including a three-year-old Muslim boy they took in for several months.

‘We decided to become hoteliers because we thought it would mean we could combine family life with working,’ said Sharon. ‘We could all play a part. It would also mean that Ben could do the cooking, something he has always enjoyed.’

Ten years ago, they purchased the first of two Edwardian houses in a quiet cul-de-sac just a quarter of a mile from Aintree race course.

They acquired the second a year later and then, knocked together, the two became a nine-bedroom hotel. It opened for business six years ago.

Despite an unpromising frontage coated in red weatherproofing, Bounty House boasts an indoor swimming pool, a sauna and furnishings more fashionably modern than you might expect of a suburban hotel. The dining room has terracotta tiles on the floor and curtains in an olive green.

One of their best sources of income has been the National Health Service, which has used Bounty House for conference guests and groups of patients attending pain-relief courses at the Walton Centre, part of Aintree hospital.

There is nothing intolerant about their Christianity. Until this case, many of their guests were Asian doctors attending conferences. So happy were Ben and Sharon to accommodate the needs of their customers that they moved furniture in the bedrooms to allow Muslims floor space to pray.

It is a cruel coincidence that they had just recorded their first profit when, last March, disaster struck.

They had been serving breakfast to a group of eight patients attending a month-long pain-management course at the Walton Centre.

One of them was 60-year-old Ericka Tazi, a white, British-born grandmother who converted to Islam 18 months ago. Suffering from fibromyalgia – a condition that leads to acute muscular pain – she had been referred to the course by her GP.

The courses, which involve talks and practical sessions to help patients deal with chronic pain, can last between two and four weeks. They are held at specialist regional clinics so are often residential, particularly for patients unable to make daily journeys. Accommodation costs are met by the hospital.

A minibus picked up the Walton group every morning at about 8am, after breakfast, and brought them back to Bounty House at about 4pm. Some were on crutches or sticks, although not Mrs Tazi.

Ben and Sharon had been on holiday when the group arrived, and the hotel was being looked after by the manager, her brother-in-law.

He reported that there had already been irritation among the group of patients due to robust but friendly exchanges on the subject of religion.

But what happened on Friday, March 20, three days after Ben and Sharon returned, appears to have come out of the blue.

What was said is the subject of angry dispute. It is also a matter of some confusion, and as neither side is willing to revisit the subject in any detail the exact sequence of events may never be known.

According to Mrs Tazi, Mr Vogelenzang became enraged when she wore a hijab and an ankle-length gown on her last day at the hotel. She says he asked her if she was a murderer and a terrorist and that he called the Prophet Mohammed a murderer and a warlord and likened him to Saddam Hussein and Hitler.

The hoteliers, for their part, say that nothing of the sort took place. Although they admit that Sharon referred to the hijab as a form of bondage, they say she did so as part of a debate on religion. There was no tirade and no abuse.

‘We in no way wanted to insult Mrs Tazi,’ said Sharon. ‘We are committed Christians and we thought we were having an adult conversation.’

After their exchanges with Mrs Tazi, they thought nothing of the incident until they received a phone call from the police a week later, informing them that a complaint had been lodged. They were told they could not be interviewed immediately because the police officer leading the investigation was away, so an appointment was fixed for three weeks later.

Their interrogation on April 20 in St Anne’s Street police station was led by DC Tracy O’Hara, who heads the North Liverpool unit of Sigma, the ‘hate crimes department’. According to Sharon, it was one of the most humiliating experiences of her life.

‘The interview was very intense,’ she said. ‘We got to the police station at ten in the morning and left at about four o’clock. We were interviewed separately. I went into a small, white room with a table and four chairs.

‘One of the two officers took notes and the interview was recorded on tape. It was extremely hard to sit there and listen to a lot of lies being told about us.’

In retrospect – though the police always acted professionally – Sharon feels they were trying to ‘push’ the case, in which she and her husband were accused of breaking Section Five of the Public Order Act.

‘We had already spent an hour each with our solicitor,’ she said. ‘It felt like a nightmare, even though he said it was a low-level accusation and didn’t think that it would warrant us being charged.

‘But he warned that if it did go that far and we needed his firm’s services, we would be means-tested to see if we would be eligible for Legal Aid. I knew we could not afford their services. So even before I got into the interview room with the police officers, I was scared.

‘The officers kept saying how serious these accusations were. They stuck to questions about the events that allegedly took place. They didn’t ask what we personally believed.’
Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang

The couple had many supporters during the trial including friends, neighbours and fellow Christians

Sharon said the six hours in the police station ‘felt like being in a bad dream – a surreal experience we couldn’t escape from’.

She added: ‘DC O’Hara, who asked most of the questions, was professional and courteous but very determined in her manner. It felt like she asked us the same questions twice.

‘The other female officer, Detective Sergeant Rhodes, also started asking me the same questions until my solicitor stepped in and said, “I think she has already answered that.”

‘The officers told us that a serious complaint had been made against us. We felt intimidated and humiliated. They kept saying we were there voluntarily, but if we hadn’t gone in they would have come and arrested us on our doorstep.’

As Ben points out, it was shocking enough to be there in the first place. ‘We are totally law-abiding citizens,’ he said. ‘We grew up with the idea that the police are your friends. I am not so sure now.’

To add to their burden, when they returned to their hotel, their manager told them that Walton Hospital, which had been providing the bulk of their business, was no longer prepared to send patients and medical staff to stay with them.

Since then, they have been losing about £8,000 a month and their dream of running a hotel that offers Christian hospitality is fading.

Their police interviews were followed by a distressing three-month wait before they were formally charged, a delay that was criticised by Deputy District Judge Richard Clancy as ‘inordinate’.

At that point, they faced yet more humiliation. ‘We had our fingerprints and photographs taken and we had to give a DNA swab – a sample taken from our cheeks with a cotton wool bud,’ said Sharon. ‘That was very upsetting and deeply intrusive. We felt we were being treated like common criminals, that we were guilty until proven innocent.

‘But the officers in the police station were considerate because they had a lot of rabble in, I think they called them, from the night before and they didn’t want us to go into
the arresting area at the same time.

‘So they waited until everyone was out of the way. But that didn’t change the fact that we felt totally humiliated being in that situation in the first place. We were shocked when we heard that we were going to court. We had never been in trouble. It was just unbelievable.’

The case was finally heard last week at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court. Sharon said: ‘Because Ben was put on the stand first, I saw all the stress of the last eight months coming out as he gave his evidence. I was determined to tell the truth and hoped someone would listen.’

Fortunately for them, and for the course of justice, Judge Clancy was listening – and he threw out the case after only a few minutes’ summing up, without even retiring to consider his verdict.

Describing Mrs Tazi’s evidence as ‘inconsistent’, he said that her account could not be trusted and that she was not quite the religious person she had presented herself to be in the witness box.

He referred to a conversation with the ambulance driver who took her to the pain-management course, in which she had told him the hotel owners ‘were taking the p*** out of me’.

Ben said: ‘We were surprised how fast the judge reached his decision.

‘We were also amazed at the media interest – newspapers and TV stations from all over the world were ringing up.

‘When we came out of court, we were so relieved – stunned but relieved. There was sustained applause for five minutes after the verdict was given.’

Life is still difficult, though. The threats and abuse have left them fearful. ‘Some of the messages are scary,’ said Ben. ‘They were saying things like, “We will get you. We will smash you up. We know where you live.”

‘Will these threats be investigated as vigorously as the allegations against us? That remains to be seen.’
Detective Constable Tracy O¿Hara

The Vogelenzangs have supporters, too, of course. Perhaps the one redeeming aspect of the sorry affair has been the solidarity of friends, neighbours and fellow Christians. The Christian Institute organised a major fundraising drive for them and ran a publicity campaign. ‘People around here were immediately up in arms when they read about our case in the Press,’ said Sharon.

‘Local churches of all denominations have supported us, and some members of the Muslim faith and people of no faith have also been supporting us.’

Warm words, though, will not pay their debts or bring in badly needed customers. ‘It’s very serious,’ said Sharon. ‘We have one guest for January and don’t have any other bookings until the Grand National in April. The hotel could close. It is up for sale and we may have to hand in the keys if we can’t pay the mortgage. We couldn’t have survived until now without gifts from Christians around the world.’

In keeping with their faith, they say they forgive Mrs Tazi and blame the legal system for their predicament, which has forced them to lay off a number of staff.

‘She doesn’t have any idea of the devastation she has caused,’ said Sharon. ‘But we don’t have harsh feelings towards her. We are just sad that the system has allowed this to happen.

‘Cases like this make the whole legal system and police system in this country a farce. How can the taxpayer keep up with it? So please don’t let this happen again – and give Christians the same rights as every other group, large or small.’

Accuser: I didn’t want this to go to court

The Muslim convert at the centre of the case against Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang said yesterday she never expected it to end up in court.

Speaking for the first time since the case was dismissed, British-born grandmother Ericka Tazi said: ‘I was frightened and shaken when I was confronted by the hotel owners. They were wrong and deserved to be told off or cautioned.’ She said she had contacted police after talking to a friend about the row over religion.

‘The next thing I knew, DC Tracy O’Hara was on my doorstep,’ she said from her home in Warrington, Cheshire. ‘I was surprised when she told me there was enough evidence to bring a prosecution. I didn’t want that but I felt unable to stop it.’

She now thinks she has been a victim of a wider plot to discredit Islam. ‘Someone wanted this case to go to trial,’ she said. ‘Muslims cannot speak out now and I believe that was the object all along. I was just a pawn in a political game.’

END