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The head pastor of the Accra branch of the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre, Mr Richard Newman, has been arrested by the police for allegedly holding noisy church activities in breach of an interim injunction placed on the church by the Adjabeng Court. Mr Newman is currently in the custody of the Ministries' Police Station in Accra. On September 27, this year, the Adjabeng Court placed an injunction on the church's activities until the final determination of a case regarding excessive noise nuisance. The case, which should have been heard on November 11, 2011, was adjourned. The church, located at Flower Pot on the Spintex Road with headquarters in Kumasi and headed by Reverend Ebenezer Adarkwa-Yiadom, popularly known as Opambour, aka Prophet One, was closed down by the the Public Health Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) on October 4, this year. Explaining further the rationale for Mr Newman's arrest, the Director of Public Health Department, Dr Simpson Anim Boateng, stated that the leadership of the church continued to hold church activities in contempt of the court's order even after they had posted on the church premises the court's order which restrained them from doing so. Consequent to that, Dr Boateng said he wrote to the Accra Regional Police Command stating among others that "contrary to the court's order, the pastor is organising a big church service today, November 8, 2011, on the church premises. In fact, the church has completely disregarded the court's order and has been holding church service twice a week ever since the order was given. I wish to solicit your support to arrest the church leaders and seize their instruments for use as exhibits at the court". When a six-member team from Monitors, a unit under the Accra Regional Command, arrived on the church premises about 11 a.m. on Sunday, November 13, it was time for offertory amid loud praises, which called for the immediate arrest of Mr Newman. A statement from the District Magistrate, Mrs Faustina M Addington, which issued the restraining order, states: "The accused person and his other pastors are hereby restrained from doing any act- acts, that is, holding church services, prayer meetings to disturb the peace of the residents/complainants till the final determination of the case. It is hereby further ordered that, failure to comply with the orders of this court, accused to be with the police". Readers will recall that in the October 5, 2011 edition of the Daily Graphic, the AMA Public Health Department posted the court�s Order on the premises of the church after securing the injunction. On February 22, 2010, a team of personnel from the AMA Public Health Department was dispatched to the premises of the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre to investigate complaints of excessive noise-making levelled against the church to the Mayor of Accra, Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, and Dr Boateng by some aggrieved residents on the Spintex Road. �Upon reaching the church premises, the accused person and his congregation, who were then worshipping at a high noise level, were asked to stop and produce relevant documents permitting them to operate as a church but they refused to do so,� the report said. The report indicated that on July 13, 2010, a team of officers from the department carried out another investigation when the church was having one of its evening services with a digital sound level meter and measured the noise level to be as high as 88.5 decibels while the permissible noise level as enshrined in the Environmental Protection Agency Noise Level Guidelines is 48 decibels in the night for residential areas.