Boy’s poor school attendance lands couple suspended prison sentence

THE poor school attendance record of a teenager resulted in a suspended prison sentence for the young man’s parents, imposed at the District Court in Gorey.

Judge Gerard Haughton indicated that the 14 days in prison handed down to the couple marked the seriousness with which he took such matters.

However, he decided to suspend the term after noting that their son will soon reach his 16th birthday and no longer be obliged to attend school.

The case taken by the Child and Family Agency first appeared on the agency’s radar in 2016.

The child had enrolled at a secondary school as a first year student but did not turn up for class from February to the end of summer term.

He did not show up for the start of his second year either and a prosecution was mentioned at a court hearing in December of 2016.

After that the boy started to put in appearances at the start of 2017, marked present on 35 days and absent for 35 days, last attending on May 16 before the school broke up for the summer holidays.

The following September, at the start of his Junior Cert year, the principal became aware that the reluctant pupil had no school uniform, books, pens or pencils.

However, this had been put right when he made a belated appearance that term on September 15, 2017.

He had a 72 per cent attendance rate up to Christmas of that year, his best rate in secondary education, as it turned out.

An official from the SFA confirmed that the teenager last attended class on January 31 last year and never sat the State exams. He dropped off the school database and his parents were told to apply to the school board, if they wished him to re-enrol.

No such application was ever received, to the best of the official’s knowledge.

Defending solicitor Lana Doherty accepted that the boy had been giving the school some disciplinary problems.

The mother was sworn in to tell Judge Haughton that she had done her best to get him to school.

He had not given any problems in primary school, she recalled, but she said he would wake up kicking and screaming at the prospect of going to secondary.

The judge was not convinced, suggesting that if their efforts were sincere, then he should be at school.

The court suspected that the truant was the one calling the shots. He could have been put in care, suggested the judge who commented: ‘It is a lifelong disability not to have a reasonable education.’

He bound the mother and father both of whom were in court – to the peace for 12 months.