A group that had planned to arrest Pope Benedict when he arrives on British soil has changed its mind:

They met over tea and biscuits in a fifth-floor boardroom at New Scotland Yard, overlooked by portraits of the Queen and the Queen Mother. On one side of the table was the Most Reverend Peter Smith, Archbishop of Southwark – one of the most senior Catholic clergymen in the country.

Opposite him were representatives of Protest the Pope, a coalition of human rights campaigners and secularists who will lead demonstrations against Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to Britain next week. Many of its leading members have previously said they want to the pontiff to be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity”. But after taking legal advice, members of the group admitted there would be no attempt to arrest the Pope because he is protected as a head of state.

“The Pope has sovereign immunity from prosecution under British law; it wouldn’t work,” said Peter Tatchell, the human rights activist who has previously tried to perform citizen’s arrests on the Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and the former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. “It’s not for want of wishing or trying.”

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