Parents of runaway teen bride avoid jail for her truancy

A JUDGE yesterday imposed a twoweek suspended jail term on the parents of a runaway teen bride for failing to ensure that she attends school.

At Ennis District Court in Co. Clare, Judge Patrick Durcan said both parents had ‘blatantly failed’ in their responsibilities to make sure the 15year-old girl attends school.

The child, who is in third year, has not attended a single day in the current school term as she is remaining in the UK to marry ‘a young lad’ on the day of her 16th birthday on July 23 next. She went missing earlier this summer while she was in the UK with her family to care for a sick grandchild. She later ‘ran away’ with the boy to whom she is now engaged.

The prosecution against the parents was being brought by the Child and Family Agency (CFA). Both pleaded guilty. In court earlier this month, the girl’s mother said that her daughter doesn’t want to come back to school in Ireland.

She said: ‘She will be left sitting and he (her fiancé) could meet someone else and her life could be destroyed.’ She added: ‘She is after running away. It is Traveller culture. We have to go with it. It is not what we want.’

In court yesterday, Judge Durcan criticised the mother for using Traveller culture as a reason as to why her daughter is not attending school. He said: ‘Their approach has been very laissez-faire when it comes to the education of their child.’

He said that there needs to be contact between the leaders of the settled Traveller community and the leaders of civic society on ‘a new contract’ between the two communities.

Kevin Sherry, solicitor for the CFA, told the court the parents had previously been prosecuted, in 2013, for non-attendance at school by their daughter when she was in primary school, and that both received the Probation Act. He said the family had six other children and that there was never an issue concerning their school attendance record.