Judge rejects claim of failure to provide acceptable education for autistic boy

A High Court judge has rejected a judicial review challenge brought against Wolverhampton City Council over an alleged failure to provide acceptable education for an autistic boy.

DS brought the case through his mother after an incident in which the 13-year-old boy arrived home from Tettenhall Wood School wearing nothing below the waist except a towel.

Following this, his parents stopped DS attending the school.

He claimed that Wolverhampton had then failed or refused to provide suitable education in breach of section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996.      

The council admitted “a degree of fault” had been found in some school staff and proposed DS should attend the Wightwick Hall School, but return to Tettenhall Wood until space was available there. The parents declined this.

In DS, R (on the application of) v Wolverhampton City Council [2017] EWHC 1660 Mr Justice Garnham said he was “entirely satisfied that Tettenhall Wood School is capable of providing efficient education suitable to the age, ability, aptitude and needs of a child like DS”, and noted it had been assessed ‘good’ by Ofsted.

He said: “It cannot sensibly be suggested that there is any physical impediment to DS attending the school and the mere fact that Mr and Mrs S would prefer DS to be educated elsewhere is not determinative. The question I must ask myself, therefore, is whether [the towel incident] means it is not reasonably possible for DS to take advantage of what would otherwise be the satisfactory schooling offered at Tettenhall Wood School.”

The judge said the parents were justifiably upset about the incident, but their reaction had not been entirely reasonable or proportionate as within four hours they were demanding that DS be moved to a new school.

“Moreover, they have made it crystal clear that they want the authority to provide DS with a place at one particular school, namely Rugeley School…an independent school, the fees for which are particularly expensive,” the judge said.

“I am left with the clear impression that the [incident was] seen by the parents as providing valuable ammunition in their fight to get their son the school they wanted for him. Whilst that is a perfectly proper ambition for the parents to have for their son, it did in my view colour their dealings with the school and the authority.”

The judge concluded the school’s response to the incident did not mean it was not reasonably practicable for DS to attend Tettenhall Wood.

Mark Smulian