A couple who took their children to Australia for three weeks in term-time have been landed with criminal records, having failed to pay a fine of £240 issued by their local council for doing so.
The parents, who cannot be named to protect the identity of their children, took the children to visit relatives in Australia after what the mother described as very stressful family circumstances.
They had both initially denied committing an offence under Section 44 of the Education Act 1996 when they appeared separately at Nuneaton Magistrates’ Court last week, but were both given conditional discharges and ordered to pay a fine and costs.
After the hearing, the mother said that the magistrates had given the fairest verdict they could under the current laws, but called them flawed. Last September, the Department for Education (DfE) removed the discretion of headteachers in England to approve absences in special circumstances, prompting an outcry.
Campaign group ‘Parents want a Say’ is lobbying to get last year’s amendment to the term-time holiday rules reversed through a judicial review and the mother in this case added that she would fully support any campaign to obtain one.
The group argues that the rules are in breach of the right to a family life and a petition opposing the regulatory change has attracted more than 200,000 signatures.
In addition, research published earlier this year suggested that the number of fines issued to parents for taking their children on holiday during term-time had risen by more than 70 per cent since the change in the law.
However, a spokesman for the local council in this case said that the verdict demonstrates that the council’s course of action in issuing the fine was correct. Currently, courts can impose a fine of up to £2,500 and a jail sentence of up to three months on parents who refuse to pay.