Queen’s Bench Division
Published July 23, 2007
Regina (Playfoot) (a Child) v Millais School Governing Body
Before Mr Michael Supperstone, QC
Judgment July 16, 2007

A school’s refusal to allow one of its pupils to wear a purity ring, demonstrating her commitment to sexual abstinence prior to marriage, did not infringe her right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Michael Supperstone, QC, sitting as a deputy Queen’s Bench Division, so held when dismissing the claim of Lydia Playfoot, suing by her father as next friend, for judicial review of the refusal of Millais School, Horsham, West Sussex, to let her wear a purity ring. Mr Paul Diamond, instructed directly, for the claimant; Mr Jonathan Auburn for the school.

HIS LORDSHIP said that the claimant sought judicial review of the decision of the school which she attended not to permit her to wear a purity ring as a symbol of her commitment to celibacy before marriage.

She contended that that decision unlawfully interfered with her right to manifest her religion or beliefs contrary to article 9.1 of the Human Rights Convention.

The issues between the parties were: whether the wearing of the ring was a manifestation of the claimant’s religious belief, whether refusing to permit her to wear the ring interfered with her freedom to manifest her belief, and, if so, whether such interference was justified by article 9.2.

Guidance was to what amounted to manifestation was to be found in decisions of the House of Lords in R (Shabina Begum) v Governors of Denbigh High School (The Times March 23, 2006; [2007] 1 AC 100) and R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment (The Times February 25, 2005; [2005] 2 AC 246).

In Williamson, it was held that in deciding whether a person’s conduct constituted manifesting a belief and practice for the purposes of article 9 it was necessary to identify the scope of the practice.

If the belief took the form of a perceived obligation to act in a specific way, then, in principle, doing that act pursuant to that belief was itself manifestation of that belief in practice. In such cases the act was intimately linked to the belief.

The claimant was under no obligation by reason of her belief to wear the ring and, in his Lordship’s judgement, the act of wearing it was not intimately linked to the belief in chastity before marriage.

In any event, the claimant’s article 9 rights had not been interfered with because she voluntarily accepted the school’s uniform policy and there were other means open to her to practise her belief without undue hardship or inconvenience.

Moreover, the rules on uniform and the school’s decision to enforce them were proportionate. Solicitors: Miss Diane Henshaw, Chichester.

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