Parents are claiming victory in their battle to prove their autistic son was wrongly excluded from his junior school.

A tribunal has found that St Stephen's School in Skipton was in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act in its deal-ings with Michael Wloch, who was six.

His parents, Wendy, 28, and Stefan Wloch, 34, of Belgrave Street, took the case to a Special Educational Needs Disability Tribunal - an inde-pendent hearing - which meet on March 31.

The tribunal found that Michael - who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome last May - was discriminated against when he was excluded for 30 days until October 8 2003. After this he never returned to St Stephens. But the tribunal the school acted properly when he was excluded on four other occasions.

Teachers said he was disruptive and his behaviour put other pupils at risk. His parents blamed staff for failing to statement Michael which would have enabled him to get special one-to-one teaching.

Mr Wloch said his son was now "very happy and a different child" at his new school in Skipton, where he had been statemented, enabling him to receive one-to-one attention.

He said the tribunal found St Stephen's had been unlawful in its actions and that Michael got less favourable treatment than the non-disabled children in his class.

"We fought long and hard for something we believed in. I felt what was happening was un-lawful and we have been proved right," he added.

A North Yorkshire County Council spokesman said the tribunal found that Michael was not unlawfully discrimi-nated against in respect of four of the five incidents of suspen-sion being considered.

The school's governing body apologised to the family for the 30-day fixed period exclusion.