Held, (1) in determining whether a given belief fell within article 9 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the court was concerned with the claimant’s subjective beliefs and whether they were genuinely held, although the court would not have to determine whether a claimant’s understanding of the relevant religion was correct or well founded. It was not the case that every act motivated by a protected belief would necessarily be a manifestation of that belief, nor would it be necessary to establish that the adherent believed that they were under an obligation to carry out the particular act of religious observance, although if the belief took the form of a perceived obligation to act in a specific way, doing that act pursuant to that belief would itself in principle be a manifestation of that belief in practice. Voluntary acceptance of the rules or the regime of an institution by a claimant might mean that the individual had expressly or impliedly agreed to limitations being placed on their freedom to manifest their religious beliefs and therefore could not subsequently complain when such limitations became an issue, even if the precise limitations were not known to them at the moment of joining or if the limitations only became an issue later. The fact that there were other means open to a claimant by which they could practise their religion—ways to circumvent the limitation placed on their freedom to manifest their religion—would mean that there had been no interference with that freedom for the purposes of article 9, which might be the case where they could manifest their beliefs in a modified way whilst remaining at the relevant institution. If a claimant had a genuine choice to manifest their beliefs elsewhere, there would be no interference with their article 9 rights. In the present case, the claimant’s belief that she should perform the Duhr prayer during the allotted window of time was a manifestation of her religious beliefs falling within the protection of article 9 of the Convention. However, by enrolling at a secular school, with the knowledge that the school had a strict approach to discipline and enforcing its ethos, the claimant had at the very least impliedly accepted that she would be subjected to restrictions on her ability to manifest her religious beliefs. It had been her belief that prayer was not permitted at school and she had made up for missed prayers after school, and throughout her time at the school she had accepted restrictions on her ability to pray. Furthermore, consistent with her beliefs, she was able to mitigate the failure to pray within the allotted window by performing an alternative prayer, with the result that she was still able to manifest her religious beliefs, albeit in a modified and less satisfactory way. Moreover, it had not been shown that the claimant would suffer undue hardship or inconvenience if she were to move to a different school which permitted her to pray during the school day. Accordingly, there had been no interference with the claimant’s article 9 rights (paras 134–135, 137–139, 151–155, 175–179, 208).

(2) On a claim for indirect discrimination on the grounds of religion contrary to section 85(2) of the Equality Act 2010, the test for whether an act or omission amounted to a detriment within the meaning of that section was not the same as the test for an interference with the freedom to manifest religious beliefs under article 9 of the Convention. Furthermore, the claimant was not required to demonstrate that the matter was one of exceptional importance to them. Rather, the test was one of materiality, addressed from the point of view of the claimant, and if the claimant’s opinion that the impugned treatment was to their detriment was a reasonable one to hold, that would usually suffice. In the present case, the prohibition of prayer rituals had prevented the claimant from praying at a time when she could and should otherwise have done so, and had thus subjected her to a “detriment” within section 85(2)(f) of the 2010 Act. Furthermore, since Muslim pupils were more likely to undertake prayer rituals during the school day than non-Muslim pupils, the prohibition had also put Muslim pupils at a “particular disadvantage” for the purposes of section 19(2)(b) of the 2010 Act. However, the disadvantage caused to Muslim pupils by the prohibition was outweighed by the aims it sought to promote, including the school’s ethos and behavioural policy, and the decision fell within the school’s margin of judgment. Accordingly, the prohibition was a proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims of the school and did not amount to indirect discrimination. Moreover, the fact that others might have taken a different view in the present context about how best to address the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the 2010 Act, did not mean that there had been a failure on the part of the school to have due regard to such matters. On the evidence the school had had due regard to the matters required by section 149(1) of the 2010 Act, and accordingly there had been no breach of the public sector equality duty (paras 159–168, 192–207, 219–222, 224–226, 229–233, 257–274).

(3) Claim allowed in part. Both the statutory guidance “Suspension and Permanent Exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England, including pupil movement” issued by the Department of Education in 2022, and the school’s exclusion policy, being expressly based on the guidance and relevant legislative provisions, provided that headteachers should take the pupil’s views into account before deciding to exclude the pupil for a period in excess of five days, whether by way of suspensions or permanent exclusions, unless it was not appropriate to do so. In the present case, the headteacher made the decision to suspend the claimant for five days on the basis of the accounts given by six other pupils about what had happened during a conversation between two of them and the claimant, without asking the claimant for her own account. In so doing the headteacher had failed to have any regard to the statutory guidance or the school’s own exclusion policy, which had required her to hear from the claimant. Consequently, the school had acted inconsistently with the policies and had been in breach of the duty to act fairly. Accordingly, there had been procedural unfairness in imposing the five-day fixed term exclusion (paras 276–285, 287–288, 296–300, 306–310).