THE parents of a 12-year-old girl who say she is barred from a school bus because of her religion are set to launch a landmark legal challenge.

Toni Sheavills attends St Bede's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, in Peterlee, County Durham.

Her parents pay £1.60 a day for transport to school because she is not a Roman Catholic and therefore cannot use the school bus.

They are to challenge the ruling, claiming she is the victim of discrimination.

Toni's case could be the first legal challenge in the country to be brought against a local education authority by the National Secular Society (NSS).

The NSS said thousands of children were being discriminated against by Britain's Local Education Authorities (LEA) on religious grounds.

It plans to launch legal challenges on behalf of non-Catholics such as Toni, who attend church schools but are denied concessionary travel, and children who want to attend a non-denominational community school, rather than their nearest church secondary.

Last night, the organisation said the attempt to make Durham LEA change its mind would be "a ground-breaking judgement which could have national ramifications".

Officials plan to write to education chiefs, but say they will seek to bring the matter to court if the LEA did not back down over the seven- mile bus trip from Toni's home in Wheatley Hill, County Durham.

Durham County Council said it was doing nothing wrong and was merely following guidelines laid out in the 1996 Education Act.

Spokesman Fraser Davey said the council had spent £12m on school transport this year and was carrying out its obligations to provide free travel to the "nearest appropriate and suitable school".

He said: "We provide free school transport to children who live more than two miles away from their nearest suitable and appropriate school.

"Toni's parents are choosing St Bede's for their own reasons, though there are other closer schools available, so their children are not eligible for free travel."

Toni's mother, Ann Collingwood, said the decision was "religious discrimination".

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS executive director, said: "The law, which pre-dates the Human Rights Act, provides free transport for, say, Roman Catholic children to travel to a distant RC school, but not for the non-religious child to go to a distant community school."

A spokesperson for the Department for Education and Skills said: "LEAs do not have a duty to provide free transport for pupils whose parents have chosen to send them to any school other than the nearest suitable one."