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Two different clients appeared in court on Wednesday, both supported by the Christian Legal Centre in seeking justice for the most vulnerable people in the UK. Nikki and Merv Kenward are challenging the recent decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to change the policy on the prosecution of medical staff who assist others in committing suicide. The Suicide Act 1961 makes it a criminal offence to assist or encourage the suicide of another person, but in 2014 the DPP amended the policy, making the prosecution of healthcare professionals in assisted suicide cases less likely. Nikki, who was once so paralysed she could only wink her right eye, and her husband campaign against euthanasia and assisted abortion. Also, pray for Aisling Hubert, who brought a private prosecution against two doctors who were filmed offering abortion on the basis of the baby's gender. But the Crown Prosecution Service took over the case and Aisling was told to pay legal costs of £47,000. For more details, see

At least 500 churches, syn­agogues, and mosques across the UK have opened their doors to homeless people in the past year, a report by the charity Housing Justice says. Volunteers donated more than 490,000 hours to the 34 church and community night-shelter projects that contributed data to the report - an average of 14,850 hours per shelter. The report was produced to draw attention to the plight of homeless people in the UK and the work of night shelters. It says that these shelters stayed open for an average of 114 days during the year, with a total of 1,920 guests (84 per cent of them male). The findings were published as the Prime Minister announced extra funds for helping the homeless. Speaking last month, Mrs May said, ‘In the run-up to Christmas, images of soup kitchens and hostels remind us of the vital lifeline provided by charities and local services to those facing a night on the streets. But today I have witnessed a different kind of support, one which seeks to stop people ending up on the street altogether by providing assistance to address their most immediate needs, and - crucially - giving them the skills and oppor­tunities to help them build a more secure future for themselves.’

Tory MP Nigel Evans has harshly criticised a foreign aid programme that hands money directly to Pakistan’s poorest people. Britain currently helps fund the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), which offered cash support to over 235,000 families across Pakistan in 2012 and could be helping 441,000 by 2020. The Department for International Development (DfID) argues that offering just over £10 a month to these families cuts out middlemen, reduces the risk of fraud, and minimises the cost of the programme. The budget for the transfers, which help people who live on less than £1 a day, has risen from £53 million in 2005 to an annual average of £219 million in the period 2011-2015. However, Evans has called on DfID to launch an urgent examination of the process, saying, ‘This should only be a temporary measure, but it seems as if we’re exporting the dole to Pakistan, which is clearly not a clever idea.’

James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, who chaired an independent panel of inquiry into the Hillsborough football disaster, has been knighted in the New Year Honours list for services to bereaved families and justice. Bishop Jones was widely praised for his chairmanship of the panel, which concluded that many of the deaths at Hillsborough might have been avoided with better medical care. Bishop Jones said that he had mixed emotions on accepting the KBE, ‘because of the enduring sadness of the families who continue to feel the loss of their loved ones’. The inquiry, he said, had been ‘very much the climax’ of his 15 years as Bishop of Liverpool. A Hillsborough protester, Professor Phil Scraton, who led the panel’s research team, revealed last week that he had turned down an OBE in protest at those who ‘remained unresponsive’ to the campaign for truth and justice.