CHURCH GAOLS SQUIRE

Evening Star, Issue 20255, 16 August 1929, Page 12

CHURCH GAOLS SQUIRE

UNDER 800-YEAR-OLD LAW 120 SIMILAR CASES AFFECTED. A medieval law, tried out in England, was found to be valid when John Henry Stevens,' of Cambridgeshire, was gaoled by an ecclesiastical court without a court trial. Tho church tribunal even went the regular courts one better and did not set a limit on ’the sentence, which will last until the court thinks Mr Stevens has been sufficiently punished for the offence—which was contempt of court. But Stevens is expected to bo released soon. UPKEEP OF CHANCEL. The trouble began in the year 1130, but Mr Stevens knew nothing about it. In that year the original title was granted, to a parcel of seventeen acres of land in Huston. A clause in the title included responsibility for the condition of tho chancel of the church, which the landholder undertook to keep up. Mr Stevens bought those seventeen acres fifteen years ago. Nobody knew anything about the upkeep clause. Then an energetic new vicar came to Huxton and found that tho chancel needed repairing, and somehow discovered that clause in the 800-year-old deed. Ho demanded that Mr Stevens repair the chancel, but Mr Stevens was not interested. He said he knew nothing about the clause in the old title when he bought tho land, and insisted that it was no longer valid in any case. GUILTY OF CONTEMPT. Having dug up the medieval agreement, there seemed nothing to do but to follow tho medieval form, so an ecclesiastical court was empanelled which proceeded to try Mr Stevens. He was found not guilty of contempt of court, but also “contumacious.” The chancellor of the diocese filed papers with the chancery division of high court, and the lord chancellor issued a warrant to the high sheriff of tho County of Cambridgeshire, m duo ancient form, for the arrest of Mr Stevens, and the wealthy landowner accordingly moved info a cell in Bedford Gaol.

xiio repairs would cost perhaps £4, but Mr Stevens insists bo will not pay as a matter of principle, claiming an ecclesiastical court is no longer competent in modern England Competent or not, Mr Stevens is gaoled and the repairs are being done, for which Mr Stevens will have to pay, and the court is under no obligation to release bim until it gets good and ready. The danger arising from 'this precedent is seen from the fact that the church assembly financed this test case to see if it could get away with the application of the medieval law which was never repealed. It found that it could. Now it has a list of 120 similar cases it intends to push, thus getting the landowners to repair churches which are falling into neglect through the indifference of the parishioners