Rule favoured boys whose fathers were past pupils

YESTERDAY’S circuit court ruling hinged on the school’s “parental rule”, which favoured boys who had a parent who previously attended the school.

John Stokes, 13, and his mother Mary Stokes argued that, because of the historic unlikelihood of Travellers attending any secondary school, this indirectly discriminated against the Travelling community.

While neither John’s father or any of his siblings went beyond primary education, his mother did. “Unusually, within the Travelling community,” Judge Tom Teehan said in his judgement, “she and all of her sisters and some of her brothers received secondary education.”