The Christian hotelier found guilty of gay bias looks set to lose her home and asks: So who's really being persecuted?



In despair: Hazelmary Bull faces financial ruin after being sued for not allowing a gay couple to share a double room

Christian hotel owner Hazelmary Bull has certainly had her faith tested to the limit this week.



Yesterday, she was planning to make a four-hour round trip to visit her desperately ill husband Peter, 71, in hospital, where he is recovering from a triple heart bypass and valve replacement surgery.



How, she fretted, was she going to tell him that they were teetering on the brink of financial ruin? That there was little hope now of hangi

ng on to the Cornish guesthouse they’d owned for 25 years; the home they’d poured not only their life savings into, but also their heart and souls. In the end, 66-year-old Hazelmary just couldn’t bring herself to do it.



On Tuesday, Peter was undergoing a nine-hour operation at the exact moment his wife of 47 years was sitting in Bristol County Court waiting to hear their fate.



In a landmark ruling, which will have far-reaching implications for many Christians in Britain, Judge Rutherford ordered the Bulls to pay civil partners Martyn Hall, 46, and Steven Preddy, 38, £1,800 each in compensation for refusing to allow the couple to stay in a double room at their hotel.



The gay couple, IT workers from Bristol, sued the Bulls for £5,000 in damages under the Equality Act (Sexuality Orientation) Regulations 2007, after they were turned away from seven-bedroom Chymorvah House, near Penzance, in September 2008.



The Bulls argued that, as devout Christians, they let their double rooms only to heterosexual married couples and that their beliefs prevented them from allowing same-sex couples to share a double bed - although gay couples could stay in single or twin rooms.



This week, however, the judge ruled that the Bulls’ actions amounted to direct discrimination, on the grounds of sexual orientation, as there was ‘no material difference between marriage and civil partnership’.



Their lives are now in turmoil. Hazelmary is adamant that she and Peter will not compromise their religious beliefs, despite the court ruling. As a result, they have two options - face prosecution again by refusing to book double rooms to gay civil partners, or close the business.



And if they close the business, which is already in debt, then they can’t afford to stay in their home.



‘I don’t want to tell Peter. I want to hold back for a little while, because he’s so ill,’ says Hazelmary, whose husband suffered complications after surgery. ‘He doesn’t know because the hospital has kept him sedated for two days.



‘The uncertainty of the future would take Peter down. He doesn’t cope well with stress.



‘I feel so upset. I don’t want us to leave Chymorvah like this. It feels like we are being driven out.



‘We have put everything into it and if we lose it we’ll be left with nothing. We’ll have no money to buy a new home and who will give us a mortgage at our age?’



Victory: Steven Preddy (left) and Martin Hall were awarded £1,800 each in compensation after they were refused to stay at Chymorvah House, near Penzance

Chymorvah is a small, loss-making hotel, which charges £43 per person per night. Yet the Bulls did not go into this business to make a fortune, but to offer Christian hospitality.



They bought the house in 1986 for £81,000 and ploughed the money they’d made from their first B&B in Cornwall into it, renovating and updating the building.



They are now incapable of paying their £2,800-a-month mortgage, and have come to an agreement with their lender to pay less, for now.



But Hazelmary says that with the hotel closed since Christmas and not due to re-open until Easter - if it ever opens again - this, too, will become impossible to meet.



‘Our lenders have been very sympathetic, but there will come a time when we will either have to sell or, if that doesn’t happen in this gloomy market, lose our home,’ says Hazelmary.



‘Even if we do re-open, things will be very tricky, because we are not prepared to compromise our beliefs. I would not be able to look God in the eye if I did.’



As evangelical Christians, the Bulls insist that ‘the Bible’s teaching is clear that a man should not lie with a man and a woman should not lie with a woman’.



'There are many people in Britain, Christian or not, who are very worried about being told what to believe in their own homes.'

Hazelmary says: ‘We are not homophobic. Had Mr Hall and Mr Preddy booked into twin rooms or for a cream tea, we would have more than ­welcomed them. For us, it’s a case of loving the sinner, but not the sin.’



Is this really the victory that ­campaigners envisaged: two elderly ­people ­facing ruin and this week subjected to a barrage of abusive phone calls and obscene emails which are now in the hands of police? Even Peter’s hospital has been plagued with ­nuisance calls.



‘Peter was airlifted to hospital on New Year’s Eve when he became ill and I believe the stress of this case exacerbated his condition,’ says Hazelmary. ‘I would have been at his side during surgery, but news on Monday afternoon that the judgment was about to be delivered came out of the blue.



‘I spoke to Peter on the phone that day. We said a lot of personal things, because this was a big operation, and prayed together.



‘He felt very upset that he couldn’t be there with me. He sees himself as a protector and provider, and felt he was letting me down.



‘I said I wished I could have the operation for him and he said: “Actually, I think I’d rather be here.” That’s how stressful this has been for him.



‘Monday was frantic with my worrying about Peter and leaving ­everything to drive through the night to get to Bristol for the judgment. When I arrived at court, I would have been out of my mind if it had not been for my faith. I prayed for strength to help me deal with whatever challenges lay ahead.



Ruin: The Bulls could be set to lose their hotel, The Chyorvah, after they were ordered to pay compensation to gay couple Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy

‘When the judgment was delivered, I was disappointed, but I can’t help feeling this isn’t over yet. There are many people in Britain, Christian or not, who are very worried about being told what to believe in their own homes.



‘This is a head-on collision between two lifestyles which are both equally protected under the human rights charter, but it seems our rights are now less equal.



‘This has never been a personal battle with Mr Hall and Mr Preddy. They were always going to feel the way they did and we were always going to feel the way we did. So is there a human rights charter out there which respects the feelings of us all? That’s what’s really on trial.’



After the judgment, Hazelmary shared the lift down with Mr Hall and Mr Preddy and insists the atmosphere was friendly.



‘I have no hostility towards them at all. They seemed like very nice people and I wish we could have met in other circumstances,’ she says.



‘They thanked me for attending and we chatted, although not about the case. When I got out at the wrong floor, they very kindly pulled me back into the lift.



‘But I didn’t get the impression they felt sorry for us. Definitely not. They looked very happy outside the court posing for photographers, while we had nothing to smile about.’



The couple denied they had deliberately ‘set up’ the Bulls, as was suggested at an earlier hearing, insisting they’d simply booked the hotel because it looked nice.



The court heard the Bulls had - prior to the incident - received ­literature from the gay rights group Stonewall criticising their policy, but the judge said there was no ­evidence to suggest the plaintiffs knew of this or the Bulls’ policy before they booked.



However, it might be fair to say that the Bulls are being targeted now. Often in a most unpleasant manner. While the 400 emails and phone calls of support from all over the world have acted like ‘an ointment on the wound’, Hazelmary says she has been shocked by the 50 or so abusive and obscene ­messages she has also received.



Some of them, she claims, are from people purporting to be gay couples trying to book a double room. Others, from anonymous strangers with an axe to grind.



‘On Tuesday night, no sooner had I returned to Chymorvah from the hospital than the phone was ringing,’ she says.



‘I didn’t even have time to take my coat off.



‘I’m not a prude, but I’ve been shocked and hurt by the language used. One told me I was an abomination and would go straight to hell.



‘I couldn’t even switch the phone off in case the hospital needed me. I had one man call, saying he and his gay partner wanted a room. I explained we were closed until Easter and got a load of bad language before he hung up. While he was ranting and raving, I just wanted to ring the hospital.



‘We’ve also had emails from people claiming to be gay ­couples, saying: “Of course, if you reject this booking, you will be acting illegally.”



‘That night, I hardly slept because Peter was so poorly. I had the phone beside me waiting to hear if they were taking Peter back to surgery, then the obscene phone calls started first thing in the morning.



‘These people know nothing about me or my lifestyle, and I’ve been astounded by their cruelty. It is hard not to feel persecuted.’

Hazelmary and Peter, a retired chartered ­surveyor, have been given 21 days leave to appeal. Supported by the Christian Institute, which funded their legal battle, the couple are in discussions to see if an appeal is feasible.



‘Appeals are very expensive and not to be entered into lightly, so whatever the Christian Institute decides about funding, we shall accept. They have their trustees to think of,’ says Hazelmary.



‘But while the court ruling on Tuesday left me feeling penned in, the possibility of appeal showed me a way out.



‘I feel this issue is so important to our society as a whole, it should be heard by the Supreme Court because someone has to sort out this mess.



‘This is a time of great uncertainty for us, but we shall just have to put our best foot forward whatever ­happens. No one has tied me to a stake and set light to me yet, so we have to put this in perspective.



‘But we didn’t move the goalposts, the Government did. We’ve been doing this since 1975, and legally doing it. Then all of a sudden they put us in a position where it is illegal.



‘People say that if I don’t like the law I should go into another business, but this is what I’m good at, this is what I trained for, this is what I have been doing all my working life. Why should I now be made to feel a criminal?



‘I am not against leglislation which protects all members of society from discrimination. No one — not least myself — would want to see a return to the days when homo­sexuals were oppressed, but I believe the pendulum has swung too far the other way.



‘Christians are definitely being marginalised. There is no question about it and we have to be careful that we don’t exchange one brand of oppression for another. The human rights charter says faith is protected not just in the home but in the workplace. Well, this is my workplace.’



So, no visitors to Chymorvah House today and possibly never again. Come Easter, the Bulls could be homeless and penniless.



‘We love this place. Who wouldn’t?’ says Hazelmary.



‘We have never taken it for granted. Never. We have always seen it as a gift, but it’s going to be hard to lose it.’

