All parents know the excitement and joy of being able to take their children on trips to see the world. For Paddy Forbes, though, his decision to take his son overseas ended in a fine.
Forbes, father of six-year-old Tommy-Lee, didn’t take kindly to the decision to fine him, either. Instead, he responded to the notice in April 2017 with a bucket of coins and a barely detectable smirk on his face.
It all started in February of that same year, when 49-year-old Forbes took his family, including Tommy-Lee’s mother, aunt and uncle, on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Egypt. It was something the working-class father wouldn’t normally be able to do.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment booking while I could afford it. I came into a bit of money at the time and we may not have got another chance to go to somewhere like Egypt,” he told The Mirror in May 2017.
Forbes took time off from the transportation firm he runs and he let staff at his son’s school know Tommy-Lee would be away. However, Forbes did not get permission from the head teacher for his son to miss class.
And, without the head teacher’s permission, his advance notice of his son’s holiday was no defense against the fine he received. That’s because U.K. law requires parents to obtain the head teacher’s okay to take their children on term-time vacations.