Blackpool mum failed to make her children attend school

Michelle Clarkson, aged 33, of Collingwood Avenue, Layton, pleaded guilty to two offences of knowingly failing to ensure a child’s attendance at school.

She was fined £185 with £250 costs and ordered to pay £30 victims’ surcharge.

Mike Deveney, prosecuting for Blackpool Council’s education department, said the case concerned a 15-year-old girl who was a pupil at Unity City Academy and a six-year-old girl who went to Devonshire Road Primary School.

Between October last year and May this year the teenager attended school 193 times out of a possible 264 occasions and had an attendance rate of 73 percent.

The six-year-old attended 248 times out of a possible 282 occasions and had an attendance rate of 87.9 percent between the same dates.

Clarkson had two previous convictions for failing to ensure a child’s regular attendance at school.

Suzanne Mugford, defending, said her client disputed that she had been offered some of the help the prosecution said she had been given.

Both girls had medical problems and it was the first time the six-year-old had had any time off school.