A legal challenge is being prepared against the government’s crackdown on parents taking children on holiday during school term time.
JP Morgan banker James Haymore will argue next month that the decision to prosecute him for taking his three children to the US for six days at the start of the spring term is a breach of the Human Rights Act and his children’s right to a family life.
Haymore, who came to Britain from the US four years ago, was summonsed after refusing to pay a £120 fine issued by the local authority after he took them to California for a memorial service for their great-grandfather.
He will argue at Colchester magistrates’ court next month that the prosecution is a breach of his human rights.
Haymore told the Sunday Times: “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.”
He is being advised by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has started a campaign which has attracted more than 200,000 signatures from parents against new rules under which head teachers are able to approve absences only in “exceptional circumstances”.
The MP said that the Haymores were “the test case we have been waiting for and we are very hopeful of winning”.
Hemming said: “Sometimes families need to be able to have a break when it suits their circumstances.
“There’s a question here as to whether [education secretary] Michael Gove’s judgment about when all children should always take holidays is better than a family’s judgment. ”
Since the new rules came in last September, head teachers have turned down requests for children to skip school for cheap term-time holidays as well as refusing applications for pupils to attend relatives’ weddings, funerals and even leave on doctor’s advice.
Parents who take children out of school during term time without approval can be fined up to £2,500 and potentially jailed.