We’d go to jail to keep Matilda star out of school
Parents’ defiance in row over girl’s home lessons
THE parents of a 12-yearold West End star have said they are prepared to go to prison over a home schooling row with their local council.
Lilian Hardy, who played Matilda in the award-winning musical based on the classic Roald Dahl children’s book, has always been educated at home.
Her parents, Eileen Tracy and Edward Hardy, believe she learns best from ‘a secure base of wellbeing’. But they have now been ordered by Westminster City Council to send Lilian to school by March 7 or face prosecution.
Miss Tracy, 50, said she and her husband have ‘no intention whatsoever’ of complying with the order. They would be liable for a fine if they are convicted, but said they would refuse to pay it out of principle.
‘We are exercising our rights under the law to ask them to rescind it, and we will appeal to the Secretary of State if they refuse,’ Miss Tracy said yesterday. ‘If that fails, we would oppose the council in court – and if necessary we would go to jail.’
Mr Hardy, 51, who works in a London primary school, added: ‘We would both be prepared to go to jail – however absurd a situation that appears to be.’
The council has asked that they either meet with a home education adviser or submit an ‘endorsement by an educator’ who knows their daughter. But they refused the requests and an ‘unwarranted inspection’ and instead sent the council examples of their daughter’s work.
Miss Tracy says their daughter’s success in auditions – particularly in winning the lead role in Matilda – vindicates their methods. Lilian was one of four girls who alternated as Matilda in the musical for six months until the end of September.
Her situation came to the council’s attention when the show’s producers, the Royal Shakespeare Company, applied for a child performance licence so she could join the cast.
Miss Tracy wrote in The Daily Telegraph: ‘ Shortly after it issued her performing licence, which put her on their radar, it requested to meet her. We declined this unwarranted inspection, offering instead samples of her work, which spoke for themselves.’ She says government guidelines for local authorities ask councils not to ascertain the suitability of the child’s work or routinely inspect, so this should have been enough.
However, she said: ‘Westminster responded that it operates its own policy … Now the council has ordered us to send Lilian to school by March 7; if we do not, we could be prosecuted, convicted and fined.’
She added: ‘Perhaps we could end this easily by letting a tutor sign off on her work. But there is a crucial principle at stake. Right now, home education is under sustained attack. The magnificent work of parents who dedicate their lives to their children is being maligned with insinuations of neglect and abuse.’
Westminster City Council said it wants to resolve the matter ‘amicably’, but Lilian’s parents have ‘unfortunately’ declined its requests for meetings.
Councillor Richard Holloway, cabinet member for children, families and young people, said 186 families home educate in the borough and added: ‘This is not an issue about the right to home education, which nobody is questioning. The law is clear, the council has a responsibility to be satisfied that all resident children are in receipt of a “suitable” education.’