A KIDDERMINSTER father has been given a suspended jail sentence for failing to send his four children to school regularly.

It is the first time Wyre Forest magistrates have used new powers given to them in truancy cases.

Previously they were limited to imposing fines.

Their decision came in the same week a woman was jailed for 60 days in Banbury for failing to ensure her daughters attended school.

At Kidderminster the 43-year-old father admitted failing to ensure the regular attendance of his children aged 13, 11, 10 and nine.

They had been absent on 184 roll calls out of a possible 192, the court was told.

Magistrate Susan Price told him: "There is a long history of you failing to send these children to school, even after convictions in this court.

"We have decided that only a sentence of imprisonment will meet the case. But a sentence of two months will be suspended because of the hardship to the children which your absence in prison would cause."

The father's solicitor, Hockham Suthi, said the children's mother left home without warning last September, taking £1,000 of the family savings with her.

The father was left unable to cope with the children and they missed school. But they had attended every day since the beginning of April and he would ensure they kept up that record.