Earlier in 2009, Mr Power, who regularly attended a Spiritualist Church in his youth and began attending again in 1980, successfully argued before an employment tribunal that spiritualism is capable of being both a religious belief and a philosophical belief for the purposes of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. Spiritualists believe that the dead can be contacted through a psychic (or medium). In giving his evidence, Mr Power argued that Spiritualist Churches have been around since 1853 and have ordained ministers and that spiritualism was found to be the eighth largest faith group in Britain in the 2001 census.

In a preliminary ruling (the transcript of which is available on XpertHR (PDF format, 56K)), the employment judge said that, as well as being capable of being a religious belief, spiritualism has sufficient "cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance" to fall into the category of a philosophical belief.

As the employment judge said at the preliminary ruling, issues to be considered at the full hearing include whether Mr Power was dismissed for the possession of religious and/or philosophical beliefs or for his alleged "inappropriate foisting of his beliefs on others".