What happened
On 8 March 2001 a fire was deliberately started in a classroom at a secondary school in the south Midlands. Three pupils were suspected; one, a boy in his early teens, admitted being present and was excluded without an end date.
The head teacher, away that day, endorsed the deputy head’s decision that the boys stay away until the police decided. Not until 21 March did she exclude him to 5 April; on 25 April a further exclusion ran to 15 May. Neither letter gave his parents the route to the governors.
Work was set at home; he came in only to sit the examinations, which he passed. The arson charges were discontinued on 19 June for want of evidence.
The outcome
The forty-five day statutory maximum expired on 6 June with no decision either way.
He asked to come back the day the charges were dropped. The head teacher said she would arrange it on written confirmation and called a reintegration meeting for 13 July; the family did not attend, and the judge found they chose not to. That evening she removed him from the roll. He began at another school on 21 January 2002, having had no schooling since 8 March 2001.
Stanley Burnton J held the first exclusion unlawful, an indefinite temporary exclusion being unknown to the law; the letters in breach for omitting the parents’ route to the governors; the exclusion unlawful once the forty-five days ran out; the governors in breach for never considering reinstatement; the removal from the roll unlawful for want of reasonable enquiry. He dismissed the claim.
The Court of Appeal allowed his appeal for 7 June 2001 to 20 January 2002 and remitted his Human Rights Act damages claim for assessment, holding that the school, not only the authority, carried the duty. The House of Lords allowed the school’s appeal in March 2006 ([2006] UKHL 14) and restored the judge: the loss could not be laid at the school’s door.
What went wrong
An exclusion with no end date, which the law does not permit. Letters missing the parents’ route to the governors. Governors notified who never considered reinstatement. Forty-five days expiring undecided.
What it teaches
Every failure was clerical; together they cost a pupil ten months.
An exclusion has a start, an end and a legal maximum. A school that treats it as an open question has lost control of it, and the letters are the parents’ only route to the people who can overturn it.
The governors’ duty is independent: being told is not considering. The school won five years later, by which time he was four years into another school. The win gave back nothing.
Questions for the room
- Your exclusion letter: who checks the paragraph on the parents’ route to the governors?
- The forty-five day limit falls in the holidays. Who is counting on day forty-six?
- The governors have been notified and have not met. What makes that visible before a court sees it?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. The Court of Appeal judgment ([2004] EWCA Civ 382) was read in full on 7 November 2026 via Find Case Law. The House of Lords judgment of 22 March 2006 ([2006] UKHL 14) returns 403 to automated fetches, so its reasoning is not quoted; the disposal rests on the case record.
The pupil is not named and no age is given: the record says thirteen, the judgment fourteen. The school and authority are withheld: the case name carries his family’s surname. No member of staff is named; none was prosecuted. He was never convicted.
Our physical intervention training for schools covers the record-keeping that exclusion decisions turn on.
Sources
- The National Archives (Find Case Law), 29 March 2004 · https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2004/382
- Parliament.uk (House of Lords judgments), 22 March 2006 · https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd060322/ali-1.htm
Reviewed 7 November 2026.