A High Court decision that ruled in favour of a British father who took his daughter out of school during term time to go on holiday looks set to be challenged by the local council involved.

Isle of Wight council had fined Jon Platt £60 – which was then doubled when he refused to pay – after he took his daughter on a family holiday to Disney World, with Mr Platt insisting he has done nothing wrong given his interpretation of the Education Act (1996) relating to ‘regular’ school attendance.

After local magistrates threw out the case, an appeal was lodged with the High Court in London to gain an indication of exactly what ‘regular attendance’ should be defined as; with the council questioning is an absence of seven straight days should be deemed as a failure to attend on a regular basis.

Judges however backed the original decision taken by the magistrate, stating that Mr Platt’s actions didn’t warrant the fine handed out; with the magistrate having not ‘erred in law’ and having been correct to take into account the ‘wider picture’ of a child’s attendance record across the rest of the academic year.

Following the ruling in May, Mr Platt announced the creation of a new firm designed to help people, via group litigation, to recover money where they themselves had been fined for taking their children out of school.

Speaking at the time, Mr Platt said it was important for local councils to ‘do the right thing’ with ‘hundreds of thousands of parents having paid millions of pounds in fines when they did absolutely nothing wrong’.

The Isle of Wight council meanwhile launched a bid to appeal against the ruling, with the High Court refusing permission to appeal; a procedural device which will now allow the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the case should be heard.

“The application by the IW Council, for permission to appeal the decision made in my case on May 13th has been heard at the High Court,” Mr Platt wrote in a Facebook post. “Their application for permission to appeal was refused. However the IW Council and the Department for Education has already indicated their intention to appeal this decision (refusal of permission to appeal) to the Supreme Court.

“I know it all sounds crazy, and it is not easy to understand, but the High Court has effectively said that they believe the IW Council has no chance of successfully appealing this decision but they can go and ask the Supreme Court for permission to appeal.

“So this is not over yet, but it is a huge and important first victory. Hopefully, within the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will also refuse permission to appeal and this will all be over.”