As all readers of this blog will know, in April 2014, following the enactment of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, Canon Jeremy Pemberton married his partner Laurence Cunnington. As a result, the Rt Revd Richard Inwood, at the time Acting Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, revoked his Permission to Officiate (PTO) within the Diocese and declined to grant him an Extra Parochial Ministry Licence (EPML), which was a necessary requirement so that he could take up the post of Chaplaincy and Bereavement Manager at the Kingsmill Hospital run by the Sherwood Hospitals NHS Trust. As a result, he was not appointed to the post.

Canon Pemberton took the matter to an Employment Tribunal, where he was unsuccessful both at the original tribunal and on appeal to an EAT. He then took his case to the Court of Appeal. On Thursday, in Pemberton v Inwood [2018] EWCA Civ 564, the Court of Appeal dismissed his claim. Continue reading →