Just as Steven Anderson reached the climax of his latest hate-filled sermon, uploaded each week on to YouTube, he was replaced on computer screens by a close-up image of the actress Helen Mirren.
Dame Helen was appearing in a L’Oréal campaign for the Prince’s Trust, the charity set up to empower young people to get into jobs, education and training. The advert appeared while Anderson’s sermon was playing, its inclusive message clashing with the bearded preacher’s exhortations that homosexuals “were not born that way, but they will burn that way”.
L’Oréal was far from the only brand to advertise on YouTube videos posted on behalf of Anderson, despite the preacher being banned from Britain last year after responding to a terrorist attack on a gay