Parents of girl with migraines say absence fine is unfair
Chloe Beak lives with chronic, debilitating migraines, which leave her unable to attend school for days at a time. But instead of receiving support from her school, her parents have been fined by the local authority for her truancy.
The family’s current solution is to send their daughter in with a migraine until she gets sent home, so her absences are registered as authorised. If they do not, the school will consider her a truant as it believes she has emotionally based school avoidance.
The Beaks are now anticipating a further fine, and worry they will have to take the matter to court to avoid risking a criminal record.
Chloe’s mother, Kerry Beak, said: “Me and my husband were so stressed out we just thought it would be easier to pay it. But £120 is a lot of money. We’ve been down every avenue with the school, but they’ve not really been a huge support. We’ve given so much evidence that it is a medical need. Chloe is bright. She’s not a truant, she wants to go to school and do well – that’s the hardest thing.”
Beak is one of many parents whose children have missed school due to mental or physical health problems who have battled with their school over unauthorised absences amid wider pressure to improve attendance. In some cases, schools insist on diagnoses which can take years to obtain, or assert that attendance will improve the pupil’s wellbeing, research by the House magazine has found.
Like Beak, some parents have fallen foul of a fast-track legal process known as the single justice procedure (SJP). Introduced in 2015, it handles about 40,000 cases a month, approximately half of all prosecutions for less serious crimes.
Under the SJP, the courts write to defendants, giving them 21 days to respond. If the defendant pleads not guilty, the case goes to an open court. However, only about onethird of defendants respond. This could be because they missed the letter, they think it’s easier to pay the fine, or there are administrative errors processing the response.
For cases that do not go to court, a magistrate typically has a very brief window of time with scant information to decide the outcome.
The Magistrates’ Association has said the SJP needs reform, and proposed requiring prosecutors to hear all pleas and mitigations before the cases are heard by the magistrate, and eliminating timepressured decisions.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Only uncontested and non-imprisonable offences are dealt with under the SJP – magistrates are always assisted by a legally qualified adviser and defendants can choose to go to court if they want to.
“Sentencing decisions are made by the independent judiciary who consider the facts of each case, including any mitigating circumstances. In any cases where a defendant was unaware of the proceedings taking place, they can make a statement to void them and start the process again.”