A Magistrate was full of quotes yesterday as he chastised two mothers who claimed they were doing all they could to ensure that their children attended school, before he granted them absolute discharges.

"The responsibility does not end when you drop the child to school. You must control your child and their behaviour," Magistrate Edward King told Zather Dill and Karen Gunness.

Ms Dill, 33, of Union Street, Pembroke and Ms Gunness, 36, of Bob's Valley, Sandy's, were accused of failing to secure regular attendance for their children between September 2001 and April this year.

When they appeared for trial earlier this summer, they both told Acting Magistrate Justin Williams that they drove their children on to school property daily, but were unaware that they were not attending classes regularly.

"Train a child to where he shall go so he will not deter from it," said Mr. King. "The school can't flog them."

"And neither can we," responded Ms Dill, to which the Magistrate went into a lengthy lecture of the role a parent must play in a child's life.

"The teacher is not the parent. Do you expect them to go and look in the bathroom for them?" he asked.

He told the women that they had to drill into their children's heads that their behaviour would not be tolerated. Although he made it clear that he believed that children should get licks, he suggested that parents find ways to correct their children without always having to resort to physical punishment. "Tell them, 'You can't have that bike. You have to sit down and do that school work,'" he told the mothers.

Citing section 46 of the Education Act, Mr. King warned the women that when a child is continually truant, whether convicted on not, the child could be arrested and sent to the Family Court, where if authorities deem it necessary, they would be placed in an "approved society".

"Then," said Mr. King, "they would be put in a place where they have to go school."

And before he passed his judgement, he criticised the penalties on the law books.

"Somebody needs his head examined. Fifty dollars will buy a ticket to a concert. And that's only if you buy it in advance," Mr. King said.