School made things 'too difficult' for palsy boy

A SCHOOL made it "unreasonably difficult" for a youngster with cerebral palsy to use its services, the High Court has heard.

The claim came during a hearing in which Rebecca Lawrence, a 33-year-old mother-of-four, said she was reduced to tears and forced to move home after Monkfield Park Primary School, in Cambourne, banned her disabled son's buggy from a nativity play.

Mrs Lawrence, of Stanley Webb Close, Cambridge, says she had to leave with the whole family, including her two eldest boys, who had to abandon their roles as shepherds in the play.

She claims the local education authority, Cambridgeshire County Council, Monkfield Park Primary School, and headteacher Lynn Anderson, breached her and her children's human rights.

Mrs Lawrence also claims they violated the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act in respect of her four-year-old twin son, Matthew, who suffers from cerebral palsy and whose pushchair was banned.

She is asking a High Court judge to award her up to £15,000 damages towards her increased rent bill when she had to move to get the boys into a school that did not ban pushchairs.

At the end of a three-day hearing, Mrs Lawrence's barrister, Lisa Busch, told the judge the school's policies had made it "impossible or unreasonably difficult for Matthew to make use of the services provided at the school while they remained in place."

She said Matthew was incapable of either walking or sitting up without his chair, and said it was impossible or unreasonably difficult for Mrs Lawrence to carry Matthew without his chair.

"The defendants, however, consistently refused to make a reasonable adjustment," she said.

But defence counsel Andrew Warnock told the court the headteacher and staff at the school "believed the policy was necessary for health and safety reasons".

He claimed arguments that the defendants were in breach of the 1998 Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights were "vexatious".

Judge Hawkesworth QC will give his ruling on Friday.

As reported in the Cambridge Evening News