Parents who have failed to ensure their children attend school regularly have ended up in court and have been fined thousands.

Recent court cases at Swindon Magistrates Court have involved mums, dads, and other guardians being sentenced for taking pupils out of lessons for too long without good reason.

It comes after the Adver revealed the number of parents being fined for taking their children on holiday in term time was on the rise.

The council handed out 1,476 penalty notices for unauthorised family holidays in the 2022-23 academic year - a 10 per cent increase on the prior year.

Defendants can be identified when reporting court cases but to abide by reporting restrictions banning the identification of the children involved, in these cases the parents must be anonymised.

One case heard at Swindon Magistrates Court last week was a mother and father in Rodbourne, who had one charge against them proved in their absence on January 5.

The court found they both knew that a six-year-old boy failed to attend regularly at a Swindon primary school where he was registered as a pupil between April 21 and May 11, 2023, and failed without reasonable justification to cause him to miss these school days.

The parents must each pay a £660 fine, £125 in court costs, and £264 to fund victim services - £1,049 each altogether.

Two parents living in the town centre each pleaded guilty to taking an 11-year-old girl out of school for nine days in 2023.

The man and woman have been discharged conditionally for 12 months and ordered to pay £125 each in court costs plus £26 each to fund victim services.

The parents of a boy in Park South admitted to taking him out of school for three days without reasonable justification.

The father must pay a £384 fine and £254 to fund victim services while the mother must pay a £256 fine and £102 to fund victim services. They must each pay £125 towards court costs.

A woman in North Swindon pleaded guilty to taking her two girls out of school for three days without reasonable justification.

She must pay a £480 fine as well as £150 in court costs plus £192 to fund victim services.

In the Adver's report, it was revealed that Swindon Borough Council handed out a total of 2,161 penalty notices from September 2022 to July 2023.

By comparison, 1,594 fines were issued during the 21-22 school year.

More than 120 guardians penalised by their children’s school in 2022-23 were then prosecuted in court for not paying the fines, and 199 cases went unresolved.