Mother stopped from travelling with son in taxi to school - because she hasn't had a criminal record check

By Luke Salkeld
10th July 2008

Accompanying her son to school is no routine family chore for Jayne Jones - it is a matter of life or death.

For 14-year-old Alex is severely epileptic and only his parents know how to operate the specialist equipment to help him if he suffers a life-threatening fit.

But that has not stopped Mrs Jones being barred from travelling in the taxi provided by the council to take Alex the five miles to school. Her offence? Not to have had a Criminal Records Bureau check.

Red tape: Jayne Jones must get a CRB check to take her son Alex to school

Mrs Jones, 41, has fallen foul of the council's policy which considers anyone travelling with the teenager to be working on its behalf and, therefore, obliged to have CRB clearance.

Now Alex, who has cerebral palsy, must travel alone until his mother passes the police check.

Mrs Jones said yesterday: 'It's crazy that I have to be CRB-checked before I can ride in a taxi with my own son.

'I have to be checked to go in a taxi with him - but if I was able to drive him myself, they wouldn't care and even offered to pay me expenses.

'The taxi company is great and they carry Alex's medication, but they won't use it. It is ridiculous that I cannot ride with him.'

Alex, from Aberfan, South Wales, takes 32 anti-convulsant tablets a day and the attacks he suffers could one day kill him.

He has recently been fitted with a lifesaving Vagus Nerve Stimulation system under the skin, which works like a pacemaker to help control the body's electrical signals and calm seizures.

But only Mrs Jones and husband Malcolm, 42, who have another son Lucas, aged eight, are trained to use it. And as Mr Jones needs the family car to get to work - and Alex's taxi drivers cannot use the equipment should he need it - Mrs Jones needs to be able to travel with Alex to Greenfield special school in Merthyr Tydfil.

Mrs Jones, who said she would only go with Alex on the occasional mornings when he looks at risk of having a fit, is now having the check done and expects the all-clear in around six weeks.

Merthyr Tydfil Council said yesterday: 'The CRB checking is a requirement of our transport provisions in relation to adults travelling on home-to-school transport in the capacity of an escort.

'This is a standard requirement and has been for several years. Any adult acting as an escort will, in the public gaze, be viewed as acting with the full acquiescence of the council and hence with its implied authority.

'For the protection of the council and all vulnerable persons in its care it's essential all those endowed with an authority, implicit or explicit, should meet the security requirements within the transport contract provisions.'

Mrs Jones's case comes just two days after the Daily Mail reported how a mother of three was wrongly barred from a school job because of a CRB blunder. Amanda Hodgson, 36, from Preston, was mixed up with a woman of the same name and date of birth who was said by police to be a drug-dealing alcoholic with convictions for assault.

A recent study has warned that the rapid spread of child protection checks and health and safety rules has 'poisoned' relations between adults and children and left youngsters at greater risk.

It said CRB checks and the rise in other regulation have fuelled an atmosphere of suspicion and left adults afraid to intervene or take responsibility.