Crowthorne and Sandhurst

A Crowthorne mother has been placed on curfew and tagged to prevent her going out at night as punishment for failing to stop her 15-year-old daughter's persistent truancy, a council announced yesterday.

Education welfare officers from Bracknell Forest borough council in Berkshire made repeated efforts to get Carol Horne, 42, to accept her parental and legal responsibility to ensure that her youngest child was at school. She had been taken to court six times, received four fines, a community sentence and finally 28 days in jail.

When the truancy continued she was taken back to court, where magistrates imposed a two-month curfew preventing her leaving her home in Crowthorne, Berks, between 7pm and 7am and reinforced the order by tagging her for the first four weeks.

The council, which sought the order before East Berkshire magistrates' court at the beginning of the month, admitted that the restriction would not necessarily improve the girl's attendance record but said that it was a punishment for the mother and a warning to others.

A spokesman said she believed it was the first time that the mother of a truant had been tagged.

"In spite of repeated efforts by our welfare education officers, the girl attended school for only 45 half-day sessions from a possible 116 between April and September 2005," the spokesman said. She had attended school just once between September 2002 and October 2004.

Horne was also ordered to pay a £150 fine. But she said that it would not affect her and that she was not concerned about her daughter missing school, as getting a job was "a matter of luck, not exam results".

Telegraph Crowthorne