The parents of an autistic boy have accused Inspire Foundation of discrimination after it did not accept him for summer school but took in his brother who does not have special needs.

The parents filed a judicial protest against Inspire, an NGO that provides a range of services and programmes for children and adults with a disability, saying their son was being discriminated against on the basis of his disability.

They submitted applications for their two children to attend Inspire’s summer school in April and, later that day, the mother received a phone call informing her that her autistic son had not been accepted. Her other son, who did not have learning needs, was.

The mother was told that Inspire had decided to reduce the number of children with special needs in its classes because there were too many children who required a learning support assistant.

The parents argued that Inspire was a foundation created to help and educate disabled people as it clearly stated on its website. It had been designed and was fully equipped to offer a service to people with a disability.

Children who did not have a disability had a vast choice of summer schools that they could attend but the choice was much more limited for those who had.

There were still available places for children in the summer school and they expected children with special needs to be given preference over others.

The parents held Inspire responsible for any damages and reserved the right to take further action.

The protest was signed by lawyer Mark Simiana and legal procurator Peter Sammut.