Pupil excluded unlawfully from school - claim for damages for breach of convention right to education - defence available to school where pupil did not avail himself of alternative education facilities or local education authority responsible for non-provision

Ali v Headteacher and Governors of the Lord Grey School: QBD (Mr Justice Stanley Burnton): 27 June 2003

The claimant, at material times of compulsory school age, was a pupil enrolled at a school.

Following a fire at the school, he and two other boys were cautioned, released on police bail, and were the subject of a police investigation.

The claimant was excluded from the school for the duration of that investigation.

Following the discontinuance of the prosecution, the school arranged a re-integration meeting which neither the claimant nor his family attended.

The claimant was then removed from the school roll.

The claimant sought damages for breach of his rights under, among other things, article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Carolyn Hamilton (instructed by Joanne Thomas, Children's Legal Centre, Colchester) for the claimant; Jonathan Moffett (instructed by the Borough Solicitor, Bracknell Forest Borough Council, Bracknell) for the defendants.

Held, dismissing the claim for damages, that the claimant had been unlawfully excluded from the school; that the exclusion up to the date of the re-integration meeting was sensible and reasonable and so did not give rise to liability; that the exclusion after that date and the removal of the claimant from the roll were neither reasonable nor justified under domestic law; but that there was a defence available to the school to a claim for damages for breach of his convention right to education where appropriate educational facilities were available to him but either he chose not to avail himself of them or the responsibility for the missed period of education was that of the local education authority; that the local education authority had undertaken responsibility for the claimant's education as a result of his exclusion and had not provided tuition for the claimant because the family had declined the offer of tuition; that the school was therefore not the cause of the claimant's lack of suitable education following the re-integration meeting; and that, accordingly, the exclusion did not give rise to a liability in damages for breach of his rights under article 2 of the First Protocol.