A DOCTOR has been prosecuted for keeping her daughter out of school when a two-week holiday in India had to be extended because her husband was taken seriously ill.


Blackburn magistrates heard Dr Surya Chelliah's husband, also a doctor, was hospitalised with suspected Tuberculosis and was not fit to travel home from the sub-continent for four weeks.


Despite producing medical evidence, Dr Chelliah was told she must appear in court because their seven-year-old daughter, Mayure Thangavel, had missed going to her Burnley primary school.


Speaking after the hearing, Dr Chelliah said: "I couldn't leave my husband seriously ill in a hospital thousands of miles away and sending our daughter home on her own was never an option. I don't know what I was expected to do."


Yesterday an education campaign group said the case highlighted the way absenteeism was dealt with since new tougher rules were introduced.


Dr Chelliah said she had pleaded guilty to failing to ensure Mayure attended regularly at Casterton Primary School, to bring the matter to an end.


She was fined £120 with £70 costs.


The court heard that education officials had hit the couple with fixed penalties after they returned home with Mayure.


They thought they had sorted the problem when they produced proof of the original flight booking, which would have got them back the day before school started after the Easter holiday, and evidence of the medical treatment Dr Thangavel Pandian Chandrasekara received.


But Dr Chellia, of Tarren Grove, Burnley, was then told she must appear in court.
Dr Chandrasekara, who works for East Lancashire Hospitals' Trust, said: "We couldn't believe it when we were summoned to court.


"I had a meeting with the headmaster and provided him with the proof of what had happened and thought that was the end of it."


Lorraine Lenoir, prosecuting on behalf of Lancashire County Council, said: "The headmaster was satisfied with the evidence but thought arrangements could have been made for Mayure to return earlier."


The court heard Mayure had also missed four weeks of school on another occasion.


Lancashire County Council's education department eventually withdrew the charge against Dr Chandrasekara, but proceeded with the case against his wife. 


Nick Dearing, defending, said his client accepted she could have returned home leaving her seriously ill husband in hospital in India.


"She accepts culpability on the basis that she could have returned home with the child," said Mr Dearing.

 

"It is something she could have done but clearly not something she would have done."


Mr Dearing said while they were in India, Mayure had been enrolled in a school and on their return she had received private tuition.


After the hearing Paul Whaling, headteacher at Casterton Primary, said: "Prosecution for non-attendance is always a last resort and we work closely with the county council to help prevent parents reaching this point."