Buckfast parents lose round of legal battle

PARENTS FACED PARTIAL
defeat in the first round of their legal battle to prevent the closure of Buckfast Abbey Prep School this week when a judge ruled that the abbot did not need to consult the chapter the full body of the monks at Buckfast before taking the decision to close the school.
She also ruled that the abbot need only obtain the advice of the Abbot's Council, a more select body of the monks, but not necessarily its consent, before going ahead with the decision.
In March a 50-strong group of parents from the 104-pupil preparatory school won an unprecedented injunction preventing its closure pending the hearing of their case against the Buckfast trustees, thought to be the first such case of its kind in England. They argued that, under charity law, the abbot, Fr David Charlesworth, should have consulted more widely.
In a short statement, the Buckfast Trustees claimed that the ruling "vindicated the mechanism by which the closure decision was taken".
But barrister Alastair Gunning, who heads the parents' protest group, said he disagreed with the judge's reading of the Rule of St Benedict. "It will come as a very considerable shock to the monks that they are to he treated with this measure of contempt," he said.
"We have won costs and we were successful in the preliminary issue the right to bring the case," Mr Gunning said.
He said the parents would now submit evidence to show that the Council was not properly consulted by the abbot.
Abbot Charlesworth announced in March that the 104-pupil school would close at the end of this term.