Boris Johnson’s decision to ban the ‘gay cure’ advert has been upheld (Picture: PA)

The decision by Boris Johnson to ban a controversial bus advert from a Christian group about homosexuals has been upheld by the High Court.

Mrs Justice Lang ruled the Mayor of London did not over step his remit as chairman of Transport for London (TfL) when he issued the ban for the Core Issues Trust’s promo last year, which suggested gay people could be helped to ‘move out of homosexuality’.

She said although the implementation of the ban was procedurally unfair, in breach of its own procedures and demonstrated a ‘failure to consider the relevant issues’, it was justified because the ad would ’cause grave offence’ to those who were gay and was perceived as homophobic, ‘thus increasing the risk of prejudice and homophobic attacks’.

Core Issues Trust’s controversial bus advert about gays (Picture: PA)

Core Issues Trust had argued Mr Johnson had been politically motivated when issuing the sanction as it was close to the elections for a new mayor.




A TfL spokesman said: ‘The High Court has found that we were right not to run the Core Issues Trust’s advertisement as it would have breached Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

‘The advertisement clearly breached our advertising policy as it contained a controversial message and was likely to cause widespread offence to the public.

‘This was borne out by the hugely negative public reaction the advertisement generated, including on social media and newspaper websites.

‘We are taking steps to address the judge’s comments regarding our internal processes.’