The petitioners proposed to erect a large sculpture of the head of Oscar Wilde by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi in a public park, which was subject to the faculty jurisdiction because it had once been a detached burial ground for St Luke's, Chelsea.

JR87, the first respondent, now nine, attended a controlled primary school in Belfast and took part in non-denominational Christian religious education (RE) and collective worship (CW). Her parents described themselves as ‘broadly humanist’ and had not raised their daughter in any religious tradition. Once she began attending school, however, they noticed that she would say a prayer before eating and ask them questions about God and religion. They voiced their concerns to the school about its RE teaching and were told that its provision of RE and CW was ‘bible-based’, followed the core syllabus for education and complied with the relevant legislation. They challenged this, arguing that the relevant legislation contravened their Convention rights under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 2 of Protocol 1 (‘A2P1’). They were successful in the lower court and the Department of Education appealed.