Section 444 1a

[stat42b]

Wondering if anybody could offer any type of advise, we have received a summons to magistrates court 10th July 2023 for a Section 444 1a -I can assure you we do not take his approach to school and truanting easy. We have reported it many times to the police, we leave work to find him when he has jumped the fence. Life in our house the last 10 months has been a nightmare. Its not a case that we allow him to have time off, we send him to school and he will either not get t here or will jump the gate half way through.

The dates they are prosecuting for is October 2022 to February 2023. His attendance was 70%. We had a council meeting back in February regarding the attendance and heard nothing about the outcome until now. Our first meeting was with the council and that was back in February.

He also missed a lot of lessons due to truanting in the building.

We work with all relevant agencies the school have put us in contact with. Our son is a nightmare when it comes to school.

If he hasn’t left the school ground then he either spend all his time put into isolation or the suspend him. The last week alone he has spent 3 days suspended, on one day we didn’t even know he suspended till the evening of the first day suspensions. He went into school and was turned away, so whilst myself and his father are at work thinking he is at school he was allowed to stroll the streets with his mates whilst we presumed he was in school. We have asked school for relevant documents to help our case next week but we have been advised it could be seen ‘as a conflict of interest’.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated at the minute, I feel we are caught in a battle with nowhere to turn.

It seems although we work full time we are not in a position to afford the court fees involved and we are trying our best to represent ourselves.

Honestly any info or insight anybody may have please let me know,

A VERY VERY DISTRESSED MOTHER

[echat11]

Hi STAT42

Welcome to LB

It's difficult, try to stay calm. I thought school's flagged parents if a child didn't attend school.

What he needs is an interest, something he can succeed at, something he can do on his own that he can build on, but without his mates.

islandgirl no doubt has knowledge on this.

[islandgirl]

Hi Stat42 - I know it is difficult but we will try to help and reassure if we can.
The actual sentencing guildelines are here.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk...-revised-2017/

The charge is interesting given your description (knowingly failing rather than failing) but that is where we are

How old is your son please?

I hear these cases in court. I always have sympathy for parents who are unable to make older children go to school. Primary ones less so unless there are specific circumstances.

Try not to worry too much about the court process. The legal advisors will help you every step of the way. You have to convince the mags that you are doing everything in your power to get your son to school.

You will be given the opportunity on the day to put your side of the story. My advice (as you will be nervous and will forget some of the mitigation you may have) is to write everything down

Firstly do a timeline :
When did school first contact you
What has happened since then
What did school do to help?
Have you complied with what they asked?
What have you done to try to get him there?
When did you meet with school last?
What was put in place to help at that point?
What happened next?
When did you meet the council
What was said or proposed?
What has happened since?
If you write this out in black and white you can give it to the Legal Advisor and they can copy it and hand to magistrates.

Write down anything else you think is helpful to your case and hand that in too. You need to put your case and situation as clearly as you can in front of the bench. All the information you gave in your post above must be before the mags. If you can show that school have been useless it will help you!

As for school not giving you the documents how can it be a conflict of interest if you require only facts? I think I would request them again in writing. Bring a copy of the letter and the school's response to the court (ask the school to respond in writing within say 3 days either giving you the info or explaining in detail why they will not given that facts cannot be a "conflict of interests" and it is not the school prosecuting anyway but the LEA)

Worst case scenario is you are fined - depending on what the mags think 50% or 100% or 150% of weekly income. The mags may well think a conditional discharge appropriate depending on the circumstances.