Parents CAN be fined for taking children on holiday during term time, Supreme Court rules

Parents can be prosecuted and fined if they take their children on holiday during term time, the Supreme Court said in a landmark ruling today.

Senior judges have backed the Government's policy on pupils who skip classes, saying it would be a "slap in the face" to law-abiding parents if others were allowed to break the rules.

The landmark ruling comes after a father, Jon Platt, defied his daughter's headteacher by taking her on a seven-day trip to DisneyWorld in Florida in 2015.

He challenged a £60 fine issued by his local council, arguing his daughter had a good overall attendance record and parents should be free to choose when they take their children on holidays.

But the Government fought the case, fearing its policy on unauthorised absences would be left in tatters if Mr Platt was victorious.

Lady Hale delivers her judgment at the Supreme Court

Delivering the judgement this morning, Lady Hale, sitting at the Supreme Court, said: "Unauthorised absences have a disruptive effect, not only on the education of the individual child, but also on the work of other pupils, and of their teachers.

"If one pupil can be taken out whenever it suits the parent, then so can others.

"Different pupils may be taken out at different times, multiplying the disruptive effect."

Lady Hale also pointed out that in this case, the child's mother had taken her out of school for a holiday in February 2015 and paid the fine without complaint.

"Parliament is unlikely to have found it acceptable that parents could take their children out of school in blatant disregard of the school rules, either without having asked for permission at all or, having asked for it, been refused", she said.

"This is not an approach to rule-keeping which any educational system can be expected to find acceptable.

"It is a slap in the face to those obedient parents who do keep the rules, whatever the cost or inconvenience to themselves."

Mr Platt's supporters argue this ruling will "criminalise parents on an unprecedented scale".

But Lady Hale pointed out that other "trivial" breaches - stealing a milk bottle and driving slightly over the speed limit - are also criminal that lead to low level fines.

The ruling will come as a relief to the Department of Education, which may have faced unprecedented disruption in schools if it had lost the case.

The legal battle began after Mr Platt was refused permission by the school to take his daughter to Orlando in Florida, but still went ahead with the trip.

Magistrates quashed the fine - £60 which doubled to £120 when Mr Platt refused to pay - but Isle of Wight council challenged the decision.

Mr Platt argued that his daughter had a 90.3 per cent attendance record at the time of the holiday, in April 2015.

At the High Court last year, judges backed Mr Platt, but referred the case to the Supreme Court because of general point of principle that it would affect parents around the country.

The five Supreme Court judges assessed the meaning of "fails to attend regularly" in the Education Act 1996, finding that this should be "in accordance with the rules prescribed by the school".

They rejected Mr Platt's case that the phrase should mean "sufficiently frequently", but judges disagreed.

Following the High Court ruling in May last year, there was a surge in bookings of term-time holidays and a string of local authorities changed their rules on pupil absences. Criminal prosecutions of other parents were also abandoned in light of the ruling.

The Supreme Court has ordered that Mr Platt's case will now go back to the magistrates court.

He can fight the case if he has a "statutory exception" for the absence, such as sickness or religious observance.

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