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Father challenges new term-time holiday crackdown
A legal challenge is being made to the Government’s crackdown on term-time holidays on the grounds it breaches human rights.
JP Morgan banker James Haymore took his three children to the US for six days in the Spring term for a memorial service for his wife’s grandfather.
He was summonsed to Colchester Magistrates’ Court after refusing to pay a £120 fine issued by the council after the children missed lessons at Chancellor Park Primary School.
Haymore, who moved to Britain from America four years ago, says the decision breaches the Human Rights Act because it affects his children’s right to a family life.
He is being advised by MP John Hemming who has collected more than 200,000 parental signatures for a campaign against the new rules that allow headteachers to only approve absences in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
Mr Haymore told Sian Griffiths of The Sunday Times: "There’s a question here as to whether Michael Gove’s judgment about when all children should always take holidays is better than a family’s judgment.
"We are good people. I’ve never even been to court before. I just hope our speaking out and challenging the system will help to change it."
Liberal Democrat John Hemming said the family was ‘the test case we have been waiting for and we are very hopeful of winning’.
A campaign group ‘Parents want a say’, officially launched last month, is seeking a judicial review of the rules, claiming they are a breach of the human right to family life.
The rules on taking children out of school were changed by Education minister Michael Gove last September to prevent unnecessary disruption to children’s education.
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