DURHAM County Council is pressing ahead with the closure of a Barnard Castle home for the elderly - despite admitting that it will interfere with residents' human rights.

Rage - the Relatives' Action Group for the Elderly - challenged the council's decision to close Stoneleigh. It claimed it had overlooked residents' rights to respect for family life and home, as detailed in the Human Rights Act 1998.

An independent inquiry in September found the county had "failed in its duty of considering Article 8 Schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998, to ensure that interference in the rights of its residential care home residents was justified."

The council has always denied this and on Wednesday said that, while it did not spell out its consideration of residents' human rights, it "nevertheless went about its decision-making with due and proper regard for the human rights of elderly residents affected by the modernisation programme".

A judicial review of the action group's challenge, due to be heard yesterday, was withdrawn from the courts after the council's cabinet reconsidered its position regarding residents' rights at a meeting on March 6.

It felt the council had taken the human rights of residents into consideration and the planned closure should go ahead.

On Wednesday, Coun Ken Manton, council leader, said: "We have always maintained that in coming to our decision to close Stoneleigh - and other homes within the modernisation programme - the county council paid due regard to the principles enshrined in Article 8 of the Human Rights Act."

But a press release issued by the county angered Mark Oley, national advocate for Rage. He is to lodge a complaint, claiming it deliberately attempted to mislead the public.

"I understand that the council is saying that the Rage legal team pulled the case - that is untrue," he said.

"The council, in a secret paper put to cabinet on March 6 - a paper not seen by our legal team in a case that was subject to the judicial process and was therefore underhand - admitted that it had breached the human rights of residents.

"The report, written by Peter Kemp and Andrew North, states 'cabinet will need to accept that the closure of Stoneleigh will inevitably interfere with residents' Article 8 rights, and that the degree of interference could well be considerable'."

Mr Oley added: "The council is now meeting all our concerns, though it would have been far better if they had involved the legal team for residents all the way through, rather than go behind the backs of everyone. This again demonstrates how the council views older people."

Alistair Wallace, action group solicitor, told the D&S Times that the council had merely pre-empted what the court would have ruled by going back to cabinet to reconsider its decision.

He said: "We've succeeded in what we wanted to achieve, which was to make Durham go back and make a fresh decision. They have done that, but they still want to go ahead and close the home. We have won the battle but lost the war."

He added that the county council had agreed to pay the action group's costs