A Muslim group has offered to help fund a school’s legal battle over its refusal to let a girl student wear the niqab in class.
The prospect is coming as an expensive legal fight because the school does not have enough financial backing.
Buckingham shire county council, the local authority for the school, is reluctant to finance a challenge that it considers could cost as much as £500,000.
On eight of this month, court will decide whether the school’s decision not to allow the pupil, aged 12, to wear the veil should go to a full judicial review or not.
However, the case seems to be week on the part of the school because the girl’s sisters were allowed to wear the niqab when a different head was in charge.
Paul Goodman, the Conservative MP for Wycombe, has pressed the county council to back the school. Nevertheless, it asserts it supports the school’s right to decide its own dress code, the council has not promised to fund a legal defense.
The Department for Education too is keeping an eye on the case because of the potential for wider implications if the school has to back down or loses a human rights case.
