UK & Ireland in Brief

A preliminary hearing into the case of suspended Christian prison chaplain Paul Song (photo below) is to be held at London County Court on 10 March.

Song, 51, a former detective, spoke to the Mail on Sunday in September 2018 after news broke about his experiences at the hands of radical Islam in the London prison.

Following the interview, he was banned, for 10 years, not just from HMP Brixton but from all prisons, for whistleblowing.

A court ruling in mid-January clarified where the next hearing in the long-running case will be held. Responding to the judgement, Pastor Paul Song said: ‘Today’s judgement gives us clarity on where the case will now be heard. I am looking forward to bringing it to the County Court where the full extent of Islamic extremism at Brixton prison and the actions of the authorities which led to my removal will be exposed.’

A minister who was leading a funeral service was accused of breaking Covid-19 restrictions – by encouraging mourners to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

A crematorium official approached Alison Davies and told her in front of mourners that she had broken the rules on ‘chanting’.

‘The chapel superintendent wagged her finger at me and said “you can’t do that”,’ Davies said.

Bridgend County Borough Council has apologised for any hurt caused by the incident, but insisted that it was attempting to apply rules which allow only one person to speak at a time.

St Helen’s Bishopsgate, London, has announced a ‘state of broken partnership’ with the Church of England’s House of Bishops over its stance on sex and marriage.

In a statement it said that the Church’s official doctrine on sex and marriage was being ‘expressly undermined by how some bishops speak and act, and by the failure to speak and act of many others’. It notes that it has communicated with the (past and) present Bishop of London and she has ‘proposed working with St Helen’s to assess how the potential consequences of broken partnership could be addressed’.

Stories of Hope, a report on church led projects in Scotland, has found that churches have delivered 212,214 individual acts of support with the help of more than 3,000 volunteers.

Projects in over 180 locations, from the Highlands to the Borders, were able to reach the most vulnerable and isolated in their communities. The report surveyed projects between May and July 2020 with the aim of understanding how churches were responding to the pandemic.