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A MOTHER who took her 12-year-old daughter out of school to go to Spain has been fined by Bolton magistrates.

Susan Moritz, aged 35, of Parkfield Avenue, Farnworth, kept daughter Jordan away from Harper Green School for a total of 16 days in November last year.

Andrew Morris, prosecuting for Bolton Council, said schools legally only had the discretion to authorise absences of up to 10 days during term time and then only in special circumstances.

Moritz pleaded guilty to failing to ensure her daughter attended school.

She tearfully told the court how she had no one to look after Jordan while she helped her sister move abroad and so had taken her daughter with her.

Moritz said: "My sister was emigrating to Spain and I had to help her and the school wouldn't authorise it."

She added that her daughter had been upset after being told by a teacher that her mother could go to jail if she did not come to school.

"I did inform the school what was going on," she said.

She added that since their return from Spain Jordan had, apart from illnesses, attended school regularly. Magistrates told her that schools had a duty to report non-attendance.

They fined Moritz £60 and ordered her to pay £43 prosecution costs and a £15 victim support surcharge.

Moritz told the court the prosecution was "ridiculous".

She said: "She had benefited from being in Spain learning another culture. She didn't lose out by missing a couple of days of school."

6:49pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

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