Places of Worship Renewal Fund: update
Historic England, which will be administering the scheme in England, has published a notice about the new Places of Worship Renewal Fund in which it says that “Detailed guidance, including the remit of the fund and all eligibility criteria, is currently being prepared and will be published here in due course. This will include information on how to apply”. In other words, continue watching this space.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025: implementation
On Tuesday, the Chief Executive of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), Michelle Russell, issued a statement marking the one-year anniversary of Royal Assent to the Act. The statement says that, over the past year, the SIA has worked closely with the Home Office and other partners on the preparatory foundations that need to be in place before it is “able to create a regulatory function that is credible and effective”. In the coming year, the SIA will be issuing its statutory guidance, recruiting staff, and building a dedicated online notification portal for premises and events to use.
(The statement begins, “One year ago today, the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 known as Martyn’s Law…” – to which the only reply can be “No: it’s known as the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025”.)
Woman charged over baptism death
The Crown Prosecution Service reports that a woman has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter following a baptism ceremony in Birmingham in 2023 in which the man being baptised drowned. Malcolm McHaffie, Head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said:
“We have decided to prosecute Cheryl Bartley, 48, with one count of gross negligence manslaughter in relation to her role as a pastor during a baptism. She will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 14 May 2026.”
West Midlands Police cautioned:
“We remind all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that she has the right to a fair trial. It is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Artificial Stupidity strikes again
In Your Home Partners v Kellichan and Another [2026] SC KDY 34, the claimants sought an order from the Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court requiring the respondents to pay £5,000 in rent arrears [1]. Sheriff MacRitchie initially rejected the claim on the grounds that it was a matter for the First-tier Tribunal (Housing and Property Chamber) [3].
Zilch to do with “religion”: the interest for this blog is that the claimants then made further submissions disputing the point about jurisdiction, arguing that it was indeed a matter for the Sheriff Court and lodging various decided cases in support of their contention, together with what they said were extracts from the “Small Claims (Scotland) Rules – Section 41a” and the “Interest on Debts (Scotland) Act 1985 – Section 1”.
The problem with that submission, however, as Sheriff MacRitchie pointed out at [13], was that the alleged Rules and Act “simply do not exist”. To which the claimants replied that
“they had obtained these case references and the purported statutes and relative statutory extracts using online Artificial Intelligence in good faith, and that they had not knowingly lodged these references to non-existent decisions, rules and a statute” [17].
Luckily for them, His Lordship decided that, on balance, it was cock-up rather than conspiracy and that he would not initiate proceedings for contempt of court [22].
Further comment by us would be otiose, but Elaine Elder and Hannah Campbell discuss the decision more fully in Scottish Legal News, here.
Chapels Wales Project
Working in partnership with denominations, congregations, heritage organisations, and local communities, the Capeli Cymru project has been established to develop innovative and practical strategies to safeguard chapel heritage across Wales. A national chapel survey has been designed to map “active, closed, and converted chapels across Wales, capturing data on their sustainability, architectural value, and status of nationally protected assets”. Links are here (general public) and here, (congregation members).
Quick links
- Bernard Capp, The Conversation: Hands off my hat! The hidden power of headwear and ‘hatiquette’ in early modern England: well worth a read, but we couldn’t help thinking that nominative determinism is alive and well…
- The Church Times reports, rather belatedly, on the conference of BPUR International at the House of Commons on 26 March, sponsored by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief, which issued a “Westminster Declaration on Preventing the Political Abuse of Religion”.
And finally…I
Wikipedia includes a dynamic listing of common initialisms relating to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) people and the LGBTQ community. Currently absent from the list is MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+, the recent use of which by Canadian MP Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP) “has sparked a frenzy online” (Newsweek, 9 April 2026). The acronym stands for: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two‑Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual people.
The Newsweek article states, “the full acronym has been used for years in Canadian government, advocacy, and community contexts to emphasise intersectionality, and is intentionally lengthy in order to name everyone who has historically been left out of national conversations about violence, justice, and safety”.
And finally…II
A Copilot search on the organisation Westminster Declaration, stated [emphasis added]:
“… is a title that has been used for two quite different documents in recent years. Your question most likely refers to the 2023 Westminster Declaration, a high‑profile international statement on free speech and censorship. But there is also a 2025 Westminster Declaration rooted in Christian public ethics. Both matter, but they serve very different constituencies and purposes“…
This exercise proved instructive: for users of AI, the importance of human interpretation of the results of AI and the value in seeking out the original source documents; and for “think-tanks” and others seeking to influence debate, the year-on-year use of a strapline or title may lead to confusion unless qualified. The belated response of the Church Times is perhaps understandable.