Holiday fine dad starts firm to help others

A FATHER who won a court fight against a fine for taking his daughter on holiday in term time is starting a firm to help ‘thousands’ of parents overturn their penalties.

Jon Platt’s landmark victory came last month after he refused to pay the £120 fine following the trip to Florida. It meant other families are now unlikely to be prosecuted and opened the door to mass appeals.

Mr Platt, who already runs a payment protection insurance claims firm, had argued that the schoolgirl’s yearly attendance was ‘regular’ at more than 90 per cent so the break, in cheaper term-time, was lawful.

He is demanding councils return wronglyimposed penalties and told BBC Radio 4’s You & Yours: ‘Parents are contacting me in their hundreds. They did nothing wrong.’

Mr Platt, 45, from the Isle of Wight, said his firm School Fines Refunds Ltd ‘will take tens of thousands of cases through the courts’. He hopes to run it without any cost to parents on a group litigation basis and would need 5,000 eligible parents to sign up.

Last year 64,000 of the school fines were handed out, a rise of 25 per cent on 2014. The Department for Education is intending to close the loophole by changing the law.