A Christian-run bakery in Northern Ireland is facing legal action after it declined to produce a pro-gay marriage campaign cake.   The McArthur family, who own Ashers Baking Company in Belfast, said they could not fulfil the order because it conflicts with their Christian beliefs about marriage being between a man and a woman.   Although the Northern Ireland Assembly has voted three times in recent years against redefining marriage, the taxpayer-funded Equality Commission for Northern Ireland claimed that the bakery had breached equality laws.  The bakery’s manager, Daniel McArthur, said: ‘We thought that this order was at odds with our beliefs, and contradicts what the Bible teaches.’  Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, which is supporting the company, said ‘This claim, if supported, would establish a dangerous precedent about the power of the state over an individual or business to force them to go against their deeply held beliefs.’

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the child protection charity NSPCC, has said people who cover up child sex abuse should be prosecuted, and there should be a duty on institutions like hospitals, children's homes and boarding schools to report abuse. He said, ‘If someone consciously knows that there is a crime committed against a child, and does nothing about it because they put the reputation of the organisation above the safety of that child, that should be a criminal offence.’ Until now the charity has opposed all forms of so-called mandatory reporting, but Mr Wanless said the NSPCC would be open to discussions about what form a new law should take. He is currently heading an inquiry about whether the Home Office failed to act on allegations of child sex abuse handed over in the 1980s by former Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens. Another independent inquiry, looking at historical sexual abuse and institutions' protection of children, will be led by retired senior judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.