In Depth:  BBC / Christian Concern

Former magistrate Richard Page, who was sacked after stating his religious view in an adoption case, has taken his case to the Court of Appeal.

As a magistrate, in 2014, he had been considering a gay couple’s application for adoption. One of the applicants had been previously rejected as an adoptive parent, and Richard Page thought the couple were adoption shopping in England with a view to taking the child overseas. He told his two fellow magistrates, whilst deliberating behind closed doors, that he thought the child up for adoption would do better with a heterosexual couple. He was reprimanded and ordered to undergo equality training. He repeated his Christian belief in a TV interview, and he was then dismissed in 2016 as a magistrate, and suspended as an NHS Trust non-executive director. In a legal first, Richard Page sued the Lord Chancellor and the NHS Trust for discrimination and lost.