At all material times Peter Ball was the suffragan Bishop of Lewes. He was charged with four counts of indecent assault and one of misconduct in public office. Ball applied to stay the proceedings. So far as the count of misconduct was concerned, he argued that a suffragan bishop was not, as a matter of law, the holder of a public office. Sweeney J (provisionally, so that the trial judge was not constrained from hearing any further argument from an amicus) concluded that the defendant was the holder of a public office at the time of the alleged misconduct. In doing so, he accepted the following reasons advanced by the prosecution. Aston Cantlow PCC v Wallbank [2003] UKHL 37 was not authority for the proposition that no office-holder in the Church of England holds public office. The amendment of Schedule 6 to the Equality Act 2010 – by section 2 of the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure 2014, so that the office of diocesan or suffragan bishop was not a public office for the purpose of Part 5 of the Act – supported the prosecution's case (that is, that such offices were otherwise public offices). The roles and responsibilities of bishops of the Church of England, their manner of appointment and the involvement in their appointment of the executive and the Sovereign, meant that the office of suffragan bishop was a public office. The role that the defendant had taken on was a senior and responsible role in the life of this country which included aspects of the function of government, and as such he had a responsibility not to misconduct himself in his life as a bishop. Following the hearing of the application the attention of the judge was drawn to James [1850] 2 Den 1 in which the clergy were held to be in a public office for the purpose of the offence, and to R v Bishop of Stafford ex parte Owen (CA) (14 August 2000, unreported), in which it was held that clergy of the Church of England could be subject to judicial review. These cases strongly reinforced the judge's provisional view. [Alexander McGregor]