School's veil ban is irrational, court told

A school's decision to ban a 12-year-old Muslim girl from wearing a full-face veil was condemned as "irrational" by her lawyers in the High Court today.

A judge heard that the girl's three elder sisters had all attended the same school in the past - two of them under the present headteacher - and had all worn the niqab with no objections.

The three young women had participated fully in school activities and the school was "very supportive of them as devout Muslims and the way they expressed their faith", said Dan Squires, counsel for their sister.

The decision not to allow the youngest girl to wear the niqab was against the principles of rationality, he told Mr Justice Silber in London.

The girl, referred to as X - she is protected by an anonymity order, as is her Buckinghamshire school - also argued through her lawyers that the ban thwarted her "legitimate expectation" that she would be allowed to wear the niqab and breached her right to freedom of "thought, conscience and religion" under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.