THE case of the mother jailed for allowing her teenage children to truant was described by an education social worker as one of the toughest she had ever come across.
Banbury magistrates sent Patricia Amos to prison for 60 days, in the first custodial sentence imposed under a “get tough” amendment to the 1996 Education Act, which came into force last year. It gives magistrates the power to make parents attend court and impose a maximum penalty of a pound;2,500 fine and three months in jail for failing to send a child to school.
Christine Deas, manager of the North Oxfordshire educational social work team, said of the controversial decision: “We were shocked but not surprised.”
In the past year members of her team had made 71 contacts over the case, including 20 home visits and eight court appearances, to get Amos’s two teenage daughters to attend Banbury school.
Fiona Hammans, principal of Banbury, said the sentence “seemed remarkably harsh but every other avenue had been explored”.
Emma, 15, and Jackie, 13, were back in school on Monday but given compassionate leave a day later to visit their mother in Holloway prison. A spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council said: “This was compassionate authorised absence. We are not punishing the children. If any pupil found that one of their parents was in prison it would be reasonable to allow them to visit.”
Amos was refused bail at Oxford Crown Court on Wednesday morning. An appeal is scheduled for next Wednesday.
The sentence was attacked as unfair by her eldest daughter, Kerry Cowman, 25, who has taken charge of her younger sisters while her mother is in prison.
Education Secretary Estelle Morris welcomed the imprisonment as a sign that the courts were taking the problem seriously. Publicity over the sentence has certainly upset parents and pupils in the Banbury area. Mrs Deas said she had been telephoned by a parents who could not get their children to go to school and were worried about the consequences. And Dr Hammans said the case had produced a flood of messages overnight from parents and carers on the school’s answering service.
Oxfordshire has prosecuted 17 parents for the non-attendance of their children since the sanctions were introduced. Of those, 10 have been fined between pound;50 and pound;2000, five received conditional discharges and two were given parenting orders.
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