A FURIOUS mum is threatening to keep her autistic son at home because he cannot face a 20-mile round trip to his allocated school.

Single mum and businesswoman Claire Pennifold had hoped her son Kane, 11, would be allocated a place at the Colne Community Academy, just one mile away from the family home, in Mill Street, Brightlingsea.

But despite appealing the decision to place him at Colchester Academy, the mum, 44, has been told unless prospective pupils drop out of the Colne Academy, 11-year-old Kane - who also suffers with social anxiety - will have to attend the Hawthorn Avenue school, ten miles away, in September.

Miss Pennifold, who runs a beauty salon in the town, said: “I am absolutely furious.

“It is pretty clear they are not looking at people as individuals and they are just doing it all by numbers.”

She added: “There is no way Kane would be able to get on a bus full of people he doesn’t know and go to a school full of people he doesn’t know on his own.

“As with many autistic children, he needs to be in places in knows, with people he knows.”

She added: “He cannot go on public transport by himself and I do not have my own transport to take him.

“At the moment, he just won’t be able to go to school in September.

“If he was to go, I just know the situation would make him suffer academically and I’m not prepared to put that on him.”

At the moment Kane attends Brightlingsea Junior School and, despite his social anxiety, does have a number of friends.

But they have all been allocated places at the Colne.

Miss Pennifold added: “All I’m asking is for my son to be able to go to the school which is a ten-minute walk away rather than one which would see him on a bus with people he doesn’t know for an hour every day.”

An Essex County Council spokesman told the Gazette all academies are responsible for their own admissions but when we spoke to Daniel Fox, a head at the academy, he said: “We do not decide who comes here.

“Admissions, including appeals, are decided at county level by an independent panel.”

After speaking to county hall bosses a second time, a council spokesman said: “The Colne School is an academy which means the school is responsible for admission decisions and the appeals process. The council is unable to comment on the outcome of an independent appeal for an academy school.”