Only The Rich Can Afford To Be Free

Robin Page has just won a pitched 5-year legal battle. He sued Her Majesty's government for arresting him for beginning a talk with the following sentence.

If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you..."

I'm delighted he won, but in a free country how in the Sam Hill could he have been arrested in the first place? And why should he have had to devote 5 years of his energy and resources to clearing his name?