First fast-track truancy hearings produce not a single conviction

The first prosecutions brought under new "fast-track" truancy laws were described yesterday as a failure after not one conviction resulted from 13 hearings.

Sandra Fletcher, the principal education officer for Thurrock Council, said she was "amazed and disappointed" that none of the cases against the parents of persistent truants was concluded and said she would ask the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Home Office to review the scheme.

Five of the nine families due at Grays magistrates' court in Essex on truancy charges relating to 13 children did not appear yesterday. The four who did had their cases adjourned until April, for more evidence to be gathered.

The cases were brought under a new fast-track system being piloted by nine local authorities, including Thurrock. Another 13 areas will join the scheme next month and there are plans for the rest of England to introduce the procedure in the autumn.

Under the scheme, parents are given 12 weeks – a school term – to improve their children's attendance or face a court summons.

Tracy Hornsby, 37, from Tilbury, Essex, pleaded not guilty over the absence of her daughter Toni, 15, from St Chad's School. Mrs Hornsby is the only defendant who can be identified. She told the court that she wanted herself and her daughter to be named to highlight the unfairness of the Government's plans.

She said her daughter had been bullied, and that she would provide medical evidence that her daughter had a phobia of school. "I feel Thurrock Council and the education department have let my daughter down badly as regards her education," Mrs Hornsby said.

Thurrock Council blamed the fast-track scheme and the legal system for the lack of convictions. Mrs Fletcher said: "It makes me question the whole project. We will need to go back to the DfES and rethink it. I really do not understand what happened today – most people when confronted with the actual legislation will put their hands up to it."

She said there were only four defences allowed by law to a parent of a persistent truant: religious holidays, unavoidable emergencies or sickness, lack of transport to a school more than three miles away and limited leeway for traveller parents.

"Speeding is speeding and no TV licence is no TV licence. Are our children worth less than that?" she said. "These children are still out of school while this process is still going on. How many of them are going to get involved in crime, drugs or, in the case of teenagers, get pregnant?"

A DfES spokesman said the fast-track aspect of the scheme referred to the time between identifying a problem parent and bringing a prosecution and that parents had every right to plead not guilty. "Once a case reaches the courts, it is a matter for the judiciary," he said.