A YORK mother whose daughter regularly skips school has claimed education staff and social workers don't help her.

Victoria Waudby, prosecuting, said the 13-year-old girl only attended a quarter of the sessions she should have done at her school over a three-and-a-half month period earlier this year.

Education welfare officers had met with the mother on several occasions and sent her warning letters about the child's truancy.

Towards the end of the period the child and two siblings were put on child protection plans because social workers were concerned she was neglecting them.

Mrs Waudby said the girl's truancy was continuing.

The mother, who is in her thirties and is not being named to protect the child's identity, pleaded guilty to not ensuring that her child attends school.

"I'm not getting any help from the school, no help from social services," she told York magistrates. "I can't do anything with her. She doesn't give a monkey's. She's got no emotions. I am trying my hardest. I don't want her off school. I want her in school, but there is nothing I can do about it. "

The magistrates told her: "Maybe the school hasn't made as much effort as they should have done before this charge was laid against you. You have been trying to comply."

They gave her a six-month conditional discharge and ordered her to pay a £20 statutory surcharge.

They declined City of York Council's application for her to pay the prosecution costs.

Mrs Waudby told them the mother and the girl's father had both received a penalty ticket in 2017 over the girl and a sibling's non-attendance at school. They had paid the fine.