A mother, who chose to remove her child from school for three weeks in order to backpack through Europe with her last Novemeber, has defended her decision to do so after Herefordshire Council brought a court case against her.

50-year-old Jackie Turner, whose daughter Hazel Sequira attends Ledbury Primary School in Herefordshire, was fined £170 by Hereford Magistrates Court this afternoon after failing to ensure her daughter regularly attended school.

Jackie, who appeared on popular TV show This Morning during the summer, insisted that she stood by her decision, asserting:" She got a great education while we were away, we saw things she would never see in a month of Sundays at school."
 


Speaking ahead of her sentence last June, Jackie told This Morning hosts that her daughter's experience was one to celebrate, saying: "She probably got more educational benefit in those three weeks than she would have done in the rest of the year at school."

Defending her decision to take her child on the three-week term time trip, Jackie argued that her daughter's school attendance should be judged over the course of the entire school year as opposed to per term.

Despite the fact Hazel's father, Maxon Sequira, did not go on the trip with his nine-year-old daughter and her mother, Mr. Sequira was fined the same amount on the grounds that he did not ensure his daughter met school attendance levels.

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