A VICAR who claimed he had been bullied by parishioners and left to rot by the Church will have to wait up to three months before he finds out whether he has won his battle to bring a claim against the Bishop and Diocese of Worcester.

An employment judge told Rev Mark Sharpe that he was constrained to get decisions out within three months.

Mr Sharpe resigned as rector of Teme Valley South, near Tenbury, in September 2009, claiming he had been subjected to bullying by parishioners, had his dog poisoned and car tyres slashed, effectively forcing him out.

He says the Diocese of Worcester did nothing to protect him. If the judge decides that Mr Sharpe was an employee or worker, he will be entitled to bring his claim to a full employment tribunal hearing.

Geoffrey Tattersall QC, for the bishop and diocese, said the Church of England’s case rested on the lack of an expressed contract between the parties and the very high level of autonomy experienced by Church of England vicars and rectors.

He told the judge that Church of England Mea-sures, which governed the way clergy are appointed and operate, had primacy.

He said: “They have the same force of law as Acts of Parliament.”

John Benson QC, for Mr Sharpe, told the judge that “there has been a great deal of information that at first hand is very difficult to understand.”

He said: “A lot of the material is arcane and bedded in history.

“The Church of England is an organisation that doesn’t fall comfortably in the role of an employer; nor does an incumbent fall into the role of an employee.” The judge said one of the difficulties in the case would be to identify if Mr Sharpe was an employee, who his employer was.

Mr Benson told the judge that various elements of a contract could be performed by “different limbs of the same organisation” with the Diocesan Board of Finance as paymaster and the bishop providing the supervision.

Judgment, which could affect police officers and judges who are not currently understood to have a contract of employment, was reserved and is unlikely to be handed down until next year.