Angry dad sues council for £16k after claiming son’s human rights were breached when teachers told him to ditch Doritos

AN angry dad sued a council for £16,000 claiming his son’s human rights were breached when teachers told him to ditch his Doritos. The cash demand — enough to buy more than 13,000 packets of the triangular crisps — was lodged after the school’s attempt to steer the 12-year-old towards a healthier option meant he ended up eating nothing. An angry dad sued a council claiming his son’s human rights were breached when teachers told him to ditch his Doritos Credit: Alamy He sued for £16,000 after the school’s attempt to steer the 12-year-old towards a healthier option Credit: Getty The lad, who is autistic and has a recognised medical eating condition, turned up at his Yorkshire school with the snacks and a member of staff tried to encourage him to swap them for something healthier. His fuming father then sued the council, claiming the official plan setting out his son’s needs had been breached. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! He also claimed the school’s staff were too rough in a previous term when they pulled his son off a pupil who he had been strangling. The dad demanded £10,000 for “discrimination and injury to feelings” plus £6,000 for breach of duty and human rights. The council had to hire solicitors and a barrister to fight the claim. But a judge ruled guiding pupils towards healthier snacks was the correct thing to do. And he threw out the complaint about the restraint, which left marks on the 12-year-old’s arms, saying staff acted reasonably. The court heard the boy had been strangling his fellow pupil for 30 to 40 seconds, applying maximum force. The council’s barrister told the court it was “difficult to imagine a more high risk situation”. Most read in The Sun The pupil’s dad, who represented himself in court, has now been ordered to pay the council’s legal costs. Figures obtained from local authorities reveal £3.75million was paid out in the past two years in more than 200 cases where schools were successfully sued over what campaigners call “ordinary childhood accidents”. Christopher McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, described compensation culture in schools as “a runaway train” fuelled by no-win, no-fee lawyers. William Yarwood, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Councils are right to fight nonsense cases, recover costs and stop no-win, no-fee chancers taking another bite out of school budgets.”