Swindon Council has failed in its attempt to take three Swindon families to court for taking their child out of school during school term time. The children in these cases had a high attendance rate and in one case a family had taken a child out of school for only four and a half days
The families were prosecuted and were ordered to pay a fine by Swindon Borough Council but were cleared at the Salisbury Magistrates’ Court.
Swindon Council will now have to pay for the cost of the court case which will be in the thousands of pounds.
The Leader of the Labour Group, Councillor Jim Grant, said:
“This is yet another failure of Swindon Borough Council, at a significant expense to the Swindon taxpayer.
When the Council should be focussing its resources on delivering value for money services to the Swindon public, they are wasting time, money and effort on a court case they should clearly have never fought.
I would like to send my congratulations to the families for fighting for what they thought was right.”