IT'S daft to jail a mum whose daughters keep missing school. But what's the alternative? What could have been done?

When your son or daughter bunks off school there is only one loser. The child.

If it is through illness, well, that's tough luck. But every child deserves an education. Apart from being loved, it is the greatest gift they can be given. And the tragedy is that many children don't have the experience to realise it.

Sending a Poole mum to jail for eight weeks will trigger debate on whether it is a wise course of action. After all, we know our prisons are full to bursting and you have to wonder what this woman will really gain from incarceration? Or society? Locking her up with seasoned criminals seems a ridiculous measure to take to teach her the importance of schooling.

But the problem isn't new. It's been going on for years and she's had no fewer than 10 previous convictions for similar offences.

I don't know anything about her particular case but I can imagine how stressful it must be for some mums and dads to get a child who doesn't want to attend school to go. Day after day. And day after day.

But truanting children are being robbed of their education. And it is hard for them to make up for lost time when they are old enough to appreciate what they've missed.

I don't think jail for this mother is a satisfactory answer. I don't suppose anyone does. It means her children are deprived not only of school but of their mum and what good will that do?

Weeping, the mother mouthed, "I love you" to her daughters as she was taken away.

But what would teach her the lesson that she, evidently, has failed to learn?