Mother jailed for not sending her three daughters to school

You make a very good argument, but i still feel jail was too harsh.

Czarcasm wrote: »

but often times the parents put up a resistance to that help, and because the children are the primary concern, you have to effectively take the parents out of the equation, by taking the children into care, or in this case, jailing the parents for one month

But if as you say all avenues had been exhausted, surely a court appearence and a warning from the judge of jailtime or some coummuity work or making the parents sign some sort of agreement or attend the school at 8.50am to sign a document of attendance and if signing is missed one day then jail the parents. Is better than flat out jailing them

ITS_A_BADGER wrote: »

You make a very good argument, but i still feel jail was too harsh.




But if as you say all avenues had been exhausted, surely a court appearence and a warning from the judge of jailtime or some coummuity work or making the parents sign some sort of agreement or attend the school at 8.50am to sign a document of attendance and if signing is missed one day then jail the parents. Is better than flat out jailing them

The judge didn't flat out jail them though, he acted on a previous judgement that was
suspended, so even THEN the judge and all involved didn't want to act on it-

But a judge sentenced her to 28 days after being told there was no medical evidence of their illnesses or a bullying complaint.

Activating a previous suspended sentence for keeping her children at home, Judge David McHugh said her household was "chaotic".

A warrant was also issued for her husband when he failed to appear in Blanchardstown District Court to answer similar charges.

The accused, who cannot be named, admitted failing to ensure her children attended school for up to 36pc of the September to December term.

The articles make no mention either of the amount of school the children had missed in previous terms, so from the start of the new school term in September, three children from the same family missed a month in school out of three. That could hardly be justifiably allowed to continue surely?

Not directed at anyone here specifically, but how many times have we seen in the same newspapers articles about children that have been failed by "the system", yet when all resources are exhausted, and when left with no other option, the parents are jailed for a month (there was a bench warrant issued for the father's arrest), people are saying it was harsh and will do nothing?

What else would they suggest be done for these children? Because the parents would have been offered every support available to them already. They just chose not to avail of it. Maybe a jail sentence might wake them up a bit and get through to them when nothing else seems to have worked.

WileyCoyote (Accelleratii Incredibus!) wrote: »

So you consider that now that their mother has been locked up for a non violent offence the system can be shown to be working for these children!

How many times does it have to be said that nobody wanted to see the parents locked up? If any good is to come of this, it will be that the parents might take responsibility for their children and see that they attend school and be given the opportunity to get an education the same as most other children of their age. I never said the system was perfect, but if it can even be shown to these children that actions have consequences, then I see that as a good thing. I'm all fine with the "I'll do what I like, when I like" mentality, as long as the people that hold this mantra understand that their actions have consequences. Most responsible adults understand this, and impart it upon their children. These parents were teaching their children that they don't have to do anything they don't want to do, and now their children are learning that decisions they make in life can have both positive short term consequences, and long term negative consequences.

Imprisonment for an offence of this nature should not be an option available to the judge. It serves no purpose, does nothing for the family involved, and adds to our overcrowded prison system.

It's been shown to serve it's purpose in the past, but the reason it's very rarely heard about is because it's very rarely implemented. As for the overcrowded prison system- it's not as if we can't squeeze in two more, and it's only for a month, the same amount of time their children missed out on in school just in one term alone. Let's try and keep some perspective- it's not as if they got a life sentence and were thrown in the violent offenders wing.

gbee wrote: »

I see reading skills are slacking in this thread too. Or is it interpretation skills are exaggerating unmade points.

Nope, it's actually writing abilities which seem to be to blame.

StinkyMunkey wrote: »

While the mother is at fault and does deserve to be punished, sending her to prison is way to excessive.

How is putting the mother in with hardened criminals going to achieve anything.

The resources they are going to spend putting this woman in prison could have been spent making sure she abides by the courts ruling.

It sickens me that someone like this goes to prison when others well more deserving dont.

The people who scammed Ireland for millions up on millions are sitting pretty, living their luxury lifestyles with everything in the wifes name. What these people did had an impact on everyone in Ireland. A mother who didnt send her 3 daughters to school hasnt in my books committed a heinous crime - she is a bad mother yes, but not a criminal.

Neglecting a childs education is wrong, but there are alot of people out there that dont even feed or look after thier childern at all.

She was given a chance to rectify her inability to sent her children to school daily, her first sentence was suspended. Therefore, she has been called up on this before.

She continued to neglect the formal education of her children and was brought to court again. The suspended sentence was put into action. As another poster mentioned, justice worked this time.

You say that the resources that will be spent on her prison stay could be better spent, well you could also say that the resources spent on principal hours, social workers, Garda time, legal fees etc that was used to try and get this family to get their girls to school was wasteful too but that didn't work, maybe incarceration will.


If every court decision was based on what some bankers/ business men did, there would be jail for nobody. 'Sure he only robbed a shop, Seanie Quinn robbed millions'.

CTYIgirl wrote: »

Sending the mother to prison won't solve anything. From reading this, I want to know several things.

1) Was a child actually being bullied. Was there complaints made, did the school do anything?

There were no complaints of bullying made to the school, and no medical evidence presented for claimed medical conditions.

2) When the children DID attend, how did they present - well dressed, neat, fed, etc.

Based only on my own experience (I have ten filing cabinets full of family cases like this in front of me, and this is only a voluntary organisation, but we would liase with the HSE and local schools and charities on a regular basis, so try extrapolate that out to cover the rest of the country and you begin to fathom the scale of the problem), but the whole family dynamics would have been investigated and if the family were willing, arrangements would be made to help the family with getting the children to school fed, well presented, their homework done, the housework would be done, a family budget would be worked out with them, they would literally be given every support possible!

But, many of them refuse help!

And on any given day I might be working with up to five different families a day while back at the office I might have another ten new cases coming in, and when I go home, another twenty cases to review.

3) What was their standard like? Were they intelligent and bored at school? (Something my mother kept me out of school because of on more than one occasion until the school copped on that I was doing the work too fast and then bored for most of the day.)

Your username is a bit of a giveaway now in all fairness!

You would have been considered an exceptional child, but these children would have been assessed by a panel of experts in their respective fields- psychiatrists, inspectors, health care professionals, social workers, who wouldn't be long telling the difference between three exceptionally gifted children, and three average children who were quickly following in their parent's "couldn't give a flying ****" footsteps.

Could the children in question have been given to a relative to go to school? Because it just doesn't make sense that kids are that vehemently opposed to school. Or was I just brought up right?

Arrangements would be made where possible to encourage the parents to bring the children to school, and in the meantime, relatives, social workers, even somebody like myself would try and get the children to school. Of course while you can hand hold children so to speak, you cannot hand hold adults, and because resources are limited, you can't monitor them 24/7 either.

Now as I mentioned already, this would happen over a period of months, not just "one week later, problem solved- NEXT". Assistance is provided on an ongoing basis unless it is ignored by the parents, which seems to be what has happened in this case. Maybe a spell in prison might be the wake up call they need.

Community service and parenting classes simply wouldn't work, because in my experience, these parents are only thinking of themselves and looking to paint themselves as "victims" already. Financial penalties wouldn't work either as most of these families are low income families already and would simply ignore financial penalties until they were made to face up to them, and then the papers would leap on the "low income family put in jail for non payment of fine", with the story written like the parents are again the victims, the judge is a callous bastard, and no mention of the multitude of people that tried to help the them.

Czarcasm wrote: »

pedantic semantics in what has to be said was a valiant effort to drag the thread off topic.

I like this. Especially as it was I who was misrepresented in the first place, but I won't accuse anyone of trying to drag the thread OT, you see I have answered in another thread prior to your post above.

If one were so concerned about forum etiquette, one might have addressed the point more appropriately in the other thread.

As for this thread, a woman is jailed for not sending her children to school, why? Is that OT?