‘I won court fight against council to move my special needs son to new school’

A determined dad has won a court fight against a council to move his special needs son to a new school.

Stephen Clark said his son Cameron, 10, was being failed by a “broken” school system at St Ninian’s primary, in Prestwick, Ayrshire, which had left him stuck in P5 while “at nursery level”.

The dad told the Record in February about fears the non-verbal youngster would be forced to go to high school in two years’ time while he is mentally years behind his peers.

Now, four months on, a sheriff has determined that South Ayrshire Council must place Cameron in neighbouring Glenburn Primary School after single dad Stephen took the local authority to court in a “David vs Goliath” battle.

He has demanded an apology from local authority chiefs over the case.

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Stephen, 49, said: “I walked into this blind. I trusted the school and everyone else around me that they would do what was best for my son and they actually didn’t.

“It’s taken me over 300 hours in the last four months to put this case together for court. I had to go through four years of emails.

“The reality is that lots of other families are facing the same issues I have and I hope others will be encouraged to challenge things that are happening with their child.”

Cameron, who had major surgery as a baby for craniosynostosis, had attended St Ninian’s since he was five.

Stephen had been locked in a battle with the council for years over his son’s mainstream schooling there after originally wanting him to attend a specialist school.

The dad had concerns over Cameron’s progress and said he was having difficulty with his peers.

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He asked for his son to move to neighbouring Glenburn for a “fresh start” but the council stated the move would be “seriously detrimental” and a report expressed concerns that the new school would not be able to offer the same support.

Stephen served a court writ on the council in March after a bid to home school Cameron was rejected.

But an appeal against the decision was accepted and the dad claims he has watched his son achieve “academic and personal breakthroughs” in a matter of weeks.

The youngster even set up a YouTube page, Makaton Little Hands, where he uses the sign language in a bid to help other families facing similar barriers.

But Stephen continued with his legal case in a bid to see Cameron back in a suitable school, saying he had to be a “detective, a lawyer and a teacher” while building his case.

At a hearing this month, Sheriff Michael Meehan found in favour of the dad and said Cameron must be placed in Glenburn, finding the council liable for the expenses of the legal case.

Stephen said the council argued that because he had since been granted permission to home school, there was no longer an active school placement dispute for the court to rule on.

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The dad said he was then told Cameron would be enrolled in the new school within 48 hours, but he has first demanded assurance that there is now adequate staff to provide the necessary support for Cameron’s needs.

He said: “Everything they said four months ago, they have now abandoned all that protocol and said he can move within 48 hours. Why were they not doing that four months ago?”

In a scathing email to the council, he said: “For the past nine weeks, your department has forced me to apply myself for 5 hours a day, totalling well over 315 hours of gruelling labour compiling evidence, auditing tracking failures, and constructing legal frameworks to fight a court case you knew you could not win. That is hundreds of hours of care, attention, and education that you actively stole from my son because I was forced to defend him from his own local authority.

“You put us through four months of unnecessary stress and directly disrupted my son’s stability to protect a legally indefensible refusal.

“Who among the leadership of South Ayrshire Council is going to take responsibility and apologise for the damage you have caused?”

A South Ayrshire Council spokeswoman said: “We are unable to comment on individual circumstances involving children.”

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