“MINIMALLY invasive” – this is how Poole council yesterday described its decision to spy on a family 21 times in three weeks over a disputed school place.

The council yesterday defended its use of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) powers on day two of a hearing before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London.

Mother-of-three Jenny Paton applied for a place at Lilliput First School and her family was watched by council officers to ensure they lived in the right catchment area.

Ben Hooper, representing the council, described the school as “educational gold dust”.

Mr Hooper said: “It was minimally invasive of privacy.

“It was a very successful state school where in June of this year it reported as being outstanding in every one of the areas it had been examined.”

The council used the powers on two other occasions to assessment the validity of school applications, the hearing was told. Mr Hooper added: “There are 3,600 school places to allocate each year in the borough and this is the third time ever that this has been available.”

On day one of the hearing, Ms Paton, 40, branded the authority “ludicrous and completely outrageous” as she took the authority to court for its use of Ripa legislation.

Dubbed the “snooper’s charter”, the Ripa was controversially introduced in 2000 to give the police, security services and Revenue and Customs the powers to spy on people in the fight against crime and terrorism.

But it has been used to monitor relatively trivial offences by some local councils, including rubbish disposal and dog fouling.

The hearing comes as it was learned that a new use will be found for the act.

Investigators will be given access to the phone and internet records of thousands of fathers who lie about their wealth or refuse to co-operate with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.