During rush hour in Wimbledon on Monday morning, passengers forced open the doors of a train to climb onto the tracks.

The reason for the panic was a man who had begun reading lines aloud from the Bible, terrifying commuters.

Trains on the route were disrupted for nearly 12 hours and rail power lines were cut as passengers "self-evacuated," British Transport Police said.

The train had been travelling between Shepperton and London Waterloo. British Transport Police said no arrests were made and no one was injured.

A bystander on the train told BBC News that the man was told to stop speaking "as he was scaring people," and that "the guy stopped and stood there with his head down".

The man was, according to the Richmond and Twickenham Times, reciting homophobic passages about homosexuality and sex outside marriage being a sin.

The story has been widely shared on Twitter, by some as a humorous oddity...

And by right wing columnists, who are calling it a sign of a country gone soft, and of a double standard when it comes to religious tolerance:

HT BBC