I deserved to go to jail says truancy mother

The mother jailed for allowing her daughters to play truant described yesterday how her time in prison had "brought her to her senses". Headteachers said the case had improved classroom attendance across the country.

Patricia Amos, 43, is believed to be the first parent to have been jailed for failing to stop a child's truancy. She was sentenced to 60 days for failing to send her children to Banbury school in Oxfordshire and was released from Holloway prison, London, last week after her sentence was cut on appeal.

After spending 14 days behind bars, Mrs Amos, who has five children, said she supported the jailing of parents of persistent truants but said her own sentence had been too harsh. "I did deserve what I got," she said. "Everybody deserves their education and I was denying my children their rights through my own stupidity and ignorance. I'm not saying it's what should be done for everybody but I do think it works. It has brought me to my senses."

Her daughters Emma, 15, and Jackie, 13, said their mother's imprisonment had taught them a vital lesson. They would not play truant in the future.

Their older sister, Kerry Cowman, 25, who looked after the teenagers while their mother was in prison, said the sentence had given her sisters the impetus to return to school. "They have been devastated by it all," she said. "I suppose in one sense it has worked, it has got them back to school, and it has helped with my mum, because she is facing up to her problems now.

"I don't think it will work for every kid. These [girls] love their mum more than anything, she is their world. And they realise what happened and what it caused. But there are kids out there that basically don't really care. It is not going to work with every kid. But I do believe something good has come out of something bad."

David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the jailing of Mrs Amos had had an "immediate impact" on other parents of persistent truants. He said: "There is no doubt that children who have been absent for a long time are suddenly turning up. It is not a coincidence. It is a direct response to the jailing. Whether it has a long-term effect is in the lap of the gods."

The Government has taken a firm line on Mrs Amos's case, with Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, supporting the decision to jail her. An aide to Ms Morris said: "The fact that the message is getting through to parents vindicates our tough stance on this. Some people will say we've been too tough but we are beginning to see this is having some effect."

Mrs Amos was jailed by Banbury magistrates' court in what was believed to be the first case of its kind under new powers gained in November 2000. The court had been told that from September 2001 to February this year, Emma had attended 55 out of 190 school sessions, an attendance record of 29 per cent. She said bullying and her grandmother's death had led to her truancy.

Jackie attended 64 of 190 school sessions, or 34 per cent. She said she had begun to skip school because she did not want to leave her mother alone after the death of her grandmother. Her mother had failed to persuade her to go to school, Jackie said. "She would try, but she knew what I was like."

¿ Four pupils have been suspended from school after pretending they had been robbed so they could avoid a lesson.

The four, from Birmingham, said they had been stopped by hooded youths who stole their mobile phones and cash. But when police searched the area, the two boys and two girls confessed they had lied because they were annoyed at having to walk back to school from a sports field. There had been no room for them in the minibus and they had invented the story to miss the lesson, West Midlands Police said.