Truants' mum: prison was a lesson

A single mother jailed for allowing her daughters to play truant told today how her time behind bars had "brought her to her senses".

Patricia Amos, who became Britain's first person to be jailed for failing to send her children to school, was freed from Holloway prison last week after a judge reduced her sentence on appeal from 60 to 28 days.

Speaking for the first time since her release, the mother of five said she now supported jail as a way to tackle bad parenting. Her two daughters, Emma, 15, and Jackie, 13, had an appalling attendance record at Banbury comprehensive school, Oxfordshire, and in spite of numerous warning letters and court summonses, Mrs Amos allowed them to "go to school or not to go to school entirely as they chose".

After 14 days in prison, much of it spent in her cell alone, Mrs Amos said that the "whole horrible thing worked". She said: "I did deserve what I got. Everybody deserves their education and I was denying my children their rights through my own stupidity and ignorance. I'm not saying it's what should be done for everybody but I do think it works. It has brought me to my senses.

"It was horrible in Holloway, not an experience I'd wish on anybody. You are locked up 24 hours a day and missing your children. Put it this way, it brings you back to reality." Mrs Amos said that while her sentence was too long, the Government should introduce a sliding scale of punishments for parents, "ranging from seven days up, which I think is reasonable".

Mrs Amos said that her girls are not "delinquents", and she would now make sure they attend school. "The girls know if it happens again I will go to prison. None of us want that."

Mrs Amos said that her family life was fine until her mother, who lived with them, died in 1999. She said she had let her mother be the mother of her children. Her own children were more like her sisters.

The teenage girls said today they felt guilty. Jackie said: "I was upset and I was angry at the amount of time they gave her. I will stay in school from now on." Emma said: "I was really upset. I had the most time off out of us both and I felt it was all my fault. It has done the trick but it shouldn't have been my mum that got done for it. It should have been me and Jackie."

Heads use Amos case as leverage