Buckfast parents seek injunction

. BY ANGUS MACDONALD
IN WHAT IS thought to be the First case of its kind in England, parents at Buckfast Abbey Prep School are seeking a High Court injunction to prevent the school's closure.
Parents who include some of England's most influential Catholic landed families are upset by what they see as the .arbitrary closure of the school, announced by Buckfast's abbot, Fr David Charlesworth, last month.
Neither the abbey chapter nor parents were consulted about the closure, to take effect from the end of the Summer Term.
"It's quite impossible to get any redress from within the system," said the leader of the parents action committee, Alastair Gunning. "This is such an injustice that we feel we have to go to the courts."
The parents have hired special counsel and begun raising funds to fight their Case, Both Cardinal Hume and the Benedictine Abbot President, Fr Francis Rossiter, have made clear that they are unable to intervene. "This is entirely a matter for the abbot and his monastic colleagues." said a spokesman for the cardinal.
"We don't want to do any harm to the abbey, but this is a totally unreasonable, unChristian decision," Mr Gunning told the Catholic Herald.
He drew a distinction between the case of Buckfast and Belmont Abbey School, which announced last week that it was to close due to falling numbers. "Unlike Belmont, Buckfast is a profitable enterprise and a profitable school it's a viable, needed and much-loved institution which was closed without any consultation with the people who could've helped to address what minor problems there are."
In a letter to parents, Fr Charlesworth said declining numbers of boarding pupils and day pupils leaving early had caused a sag in numbers. "It is not, at present, a financial matter, though it is predicted that it will become one very soon," he wrote.
Since then, the abbot has refused to speak to the press or parent's representatives about the issue.
But many parents believe the drop in numbers of Catholic pupils attending the school underlies the closure. "This is about the drop in Catholic boy boarders, which can be addressed in lots of different ways," said Mr Gunning. "It's shameful to close the school because of that."