Surely they should just get her to pay the fine?

[FrustatedAgain]

This woman didn't pay her term time holiday fine, she says they only received one penalty notice. Surely if she is willing to pay the fine the council should just let her. Surely taking her to court is going to cost the council time and money?
Mother, 33, facing court after taking her son, six, on 'holiday of a lifetime' to Cyprus during term time insists it was 'educational in a way that school can't offer' | Daily Mail Online

Yes and they thought they'd got away with having to pay hers. I just find it very difficult to believe they didn't know they would both get a fine it's hardly a well kept secret.

It's not a well kept secret that they might both have been fined, but if they genuinely did only receive one letter (and FWIW, if they've paid one fine I can't see why they wouldn't just pay both and avoid the hassle of not) you're hardly going to call up the council and say "hiya, are you going to fine me too" are you? It's just as plausible one parent was fined to make the point, IMHO.

Term time fines are ridiculous anyway. Here in Wales they take a much more reasonable stance on term time holidays. Never known anyone to be fined at our local school. Waste of time, money and resources taking them to court.

We get threatened with fines after dc miss a week watching dh take part in a fantastic sporting event every year... This year I intend to add up lessons missed due to endless charity events like Children In Need /Red Nose day / Sport's Day / Theatre trip /church events /school fairs etc. All none essential..

The UK is nuts. So glad I live in Ireland where you can take your own child out of school for whatever reason and not get fines and threats. Its batshit.

I would like to clarify, you do not get multiple opportunities, No reminders nothing. All I have been trying to do is pay the fine ever since I found out I was suppose to receive one in September. HCC are the ones that are stopping me from having that opportunity unfortunately.

so glad I live in Ireland where you can take your own child out of school for whatever reason and not get fines and threats

I didn't realise that kids in Ireland don't have to go to school.

They do, but if you want to take them out for a holiday or for any other reason the schools here trust the parents judgement instead of asking can you take your own child out for whatever reason.

@Psychoticbreak
If "they do", what happens if they don't?

It will be far more harmful to the education of this child to have his mother sent to prison. What 6 year old is going to be able to learn well at school when he hasn’t seen his mother for months? Zero logic to any of this. If it’s about improving educational outcomes then they need a complete a rethink.

She won't get sent to prison. She'll get a bigger fine to pay.

I have no particular views on the fine, but am PMSL at the idea that sitting on a beach for a fortnight and going to a wedding qualify as important educational opportunities.

I think that fining parents for short periods off if their kids normally have good attendance is daft. I do however think that we need more EWOs and they need to have more authority to act with families where they know that parents are not making the effort to get their kids to school. Support should be provided first but if there is concern that the family is not engaging despite plenty of help fines should be an option. There is no doubt that people often allow their kids the day off when they have a subject they don't like or when there is a test or when it's their birthday or when they want to get away early on a Friday etc etc.

Given the state of Royal Mail and the amount of undelivered post, or post they have destroyed or that’s been dumped, it is entirely possible that she really didn’t get the fine. If she is happy to pay it then just let her pay if! They’re being way too punitive. It isn’t in the public interest to prosecute here.

It's a stupid law, it needs to go and our courts are already creaking under the strain without imbecile shit like this being thrown into the mix.

I think it's just England, not the UK. Fines are certainty not a thing in Scotland!

Well, they probably got a grand from the Daily Fail so I don't think it will bankrupt them. I don't approve of people taking their kids out of school for weeks at a time, they will find it really hard to catch up. If you want to go travelling as a family then you will be needing to homeschool them rather than missing big chunks of schooling. The fine is not really the point.

Ah now come on. They also went to the zoo and played in the pool.

@Psychoticbreak

England isn’t the UK. The fine. Other parts of the UK don’t. We are all English with English law.

@Itslegitimatesalvage it really was the case, I have had to contact royal mail for proof of the issues in and around the area, which I did get, but obviously they don't hold records for first and second class mail. the proof the school have for sending, is also self certified, The lengths I have had to go to prove my innocence is huge. My local Cllr and MP have also been involved with trying to help me get the fine reissued, HCC are not giving me an opportunity to have the fine reinstated, unfortunately I was under the impression that because we lived together they just sent it as one, Which we paid, I thought that was it. We never received anything to tell us otherwise, until a couple of months after when I received a letter in September saying I hadn't paid it, which I queried at the time and tried to pay it, once I found out that there were suppose to be 2. Heard nothing more until December, All I want to do is pay it. People seem to think there is 'enough opportunities to pay it' but there really isn't. This really was not the case of thinking I had got away with paying a fine, like some people like to assume. They should either be recorded delivery or the school should get you to sign the document to say you received it, it could save some people a lot time and money.

Agree. She could just have said it's because the costs in school holidays are ridiculous. No need to make up other BS!

That's an excellent point.

So many children are unwell or break limbs during their school career and have a few weeks off. I'm sure they must statistically fair better than children from abusive homes, looked after children and children of parents incarcerated.

I'd actually be interested if anyone has any statistics on this .

All people need to do is factor the cost of the fines into the cost of the holiday. It still works out much cheaper than going in the school holidays.

The trouble is, like parking tickets, you usually can't pay a fine without the correct reference number. I had a hell of a time when I moved to the UK trying to chase down a toll fine I knew I had incurred in Ireland but the UK company who administered it flatly refused to give me the fine's reference number to pay and kept increasing the fine in the meantime. The notice went to my old address so while I knew I needed to pay it as I'd driven on the toll road around Dublin, I didn't have any way of paying it as they wouldn't give me the info I needed to actually pay it.

Being from Donegal, I had seen the signs but had no fecking clue how to sort it out as I wasn't a regular around that road, and I wasn't driving back to bloody Donegal from London to pick up a fine notice! It ended up costing £140 which was less than the ferry if I'd gone back to get the letter they refused to reissue to my new address.

And I only got it sorted because they finally made a mistake by using the reference number I needed (that they were refusing to give me due to "data protection") in an email subject line so I tried putting it into their system and finally managed to pay the bloody thing.

I think places that put unreasonable barriers in the way of people paying fines should automatically be barred from collecting those fines.

The council are being twats and should just sort it out so she can pay it.

I was thinking this, why not just say we couldn’t afford to go in school holidays and as he has good attendance we decided the pros outweighed the cons!

Nothing, You sign the absence note and tick a box like illness/holiday etc and that is it. Your child, your rules.