Noel and Sue Radford, the Lancashire couple known across Britain for raising 22 children and fronting the reality series 22 Kids and Counting, have been convicted and fined for taking four of their school-age children out of class to join a lavish family holiday to Walt Disney World in Florida earlier this year. Magistrates in Preston found the pair guilty of failing to secure their children’s regular attendance at school between 24 March and 1 May 2025, a span covering the bulk of the trip that doubled as a widely publicised 50th-birthday celebration for Sue Radford. The court imposed statutory fines of £65 per child and ordered each parent to pay court costs, leaving the couple with a modest penalty relative to a holiday that, by their own social media accounts and subsequent reporting, ran to the tens of thousands of pounds.
The case turned on a straightforward point of law that has ensnared thousands of parents in England in recent years: pupils may only be removed from school during term time in “exceptional circumstances,” and head teachers have limited discretion to authorise short absences. Local authorities may issue fixed penalty notices if they believe a child’s attendance has been compromised; when parents do not pay or contest the notice, cases can be referred to magistrates’ court. In the Radfords’ situation, Lancashire County Council brought charges against both parents after four of their younger children were absent for several weeks around Easter. Prosecutors presented registers and internal school correspondence to show that the absences were unauthorised and prolonged; the defence did not dispute the family’s travel but argued that the educational impact should be weighed against family cohesion in a household of unusual size and profile. The magistrates were not persuaded.
Public interest in the hearing far exceeded the sums involved because of the Radfords’ unusual domestic circumstances and their status as one of the best-known families in Britain. Based in Morecambe, the couple have documented their household for more than a decade, first through YouTube videos and Channel 5 documentaries and later in the series 22 Kids and Counting. They run Radford’s Pie Company, a small bakery that predates their television career, and supplement that income with sponsorships and programme fees. Their social feeds routinely chronicle large-scale logistics—bulk food shops, minibus runs, birthday stacks, and holiday planning—that would be beyond the imagination of most households. It is precisely that visibility that fed the resentment and curiosity surrounding the Florida trip and the subsequent prosecution, with critics questioning whether televised earnings and brand deals had insulated the couple from trade-offs other parents face when weighing term-time travel.
The Florida holiday itself, timed for April and built around theme-park days and a multigenerational villa stay, was presented online as a long-planned gift for Sue’s milestone birthday. Posts and vlogs showed portions of the group—children spanning primary and secondary school ages, several adult offspring, and numerous grandchildren—moving through the parks and settling into accommodation large enough to handle the family’s numbers. A breakdown reported by entertainment sites put the outlay at roughly £52,000 (about $65,000–$70,000), with flights accounting for half that total and park admissions, ground transport and accommodation making up the remainder. Disney queueing changes and the friction of shepherding a party of that size became minor plot points in the family’s content during the month overseas.