A single mother jailed because of her truanting son has been freed.

Nicola Dunk, 32, of Bristol Gardens, Brighton, walked free from court after a judge sympathised with her problems trying to ensure a reluctant 15-year-old went to school.

Dunk, who had originally been jailed for two months, was freed yesterday when the judge reduced her sentence to allow her immediate release.

Her son Andre, now 16, failed to turn up to a single lesson during the 2003/04 academic year and his attendance before that averaged about 25 per cent.

Judge Guy Anthony, sitting with magistrates at Hove Crown Court, said: "Clearly, this boy is not interested in attending school.

"It would be flying in the face of reality to ignore the fact that it would be very difficult to enforce the attendance of a 15-year-old boy who may be bigger and stronger than his mother and who does not want to go to school.

"Bearing in mind this is the first offence she has committed of this matter, the age of the child and the other point that there were no other children who may have been affected by this, we feel there is some force in the suggestion that the sentence was greater than it needed to have been.

"For that reason we will reduce the sentence to six weeks, which will enable release immediately."

The judge also lifted reporting restrictions, allowing the boy and his mother to be named.

He said: "We have to say that we think that the purpose of passing a prison sentence in cases such as these is intended to be a deterrent to others.

"A very great force of that deterrent would disappear if it was just a report in the local Press of 'a local mum'.

"People will not take it to the same extent as if it is a named person some of them will know.

"Reporting restrictions are not for the benefit of the parent but the benefit of the child.

"We feel it is appropriate to lift restrictions as far as reporting is concerned so that this defendant and her son may be named."

Dunk was originally convicted by Brighton magistrates, in her absence, of failing to ensure her son attended school.

She then failed to attend court for sentencing.

Five warrants for her arrest were issued.

She was arrested earlier this month and brought before the court, where she was also jailed for seven days, to run concurrently, for failing to surrender to bail.

Andrew Bishop, defending, argued that the magistrates' sentence was too severe - the maximum is three months.

Mr Bishop said Andre, a pupil at Brighton College of Media Arts, now lived with his grandmother in Nottinghamshire, where he used to live before moving to Brighton in 1999.

He said: "Regrettably, she has been no more successful in securing his attendance at school.

"He began to mix with the wrong crowd. The defendant tried to ensure his attendance at school but it became increasingly difficult.

"She confronted him about this and tried to persuade him to go to school.

"Andre said he had been going to school but he was just not registering or going to the gates.

"His mother thought he was going to school and very much encouraged him to go.

"She accepts she sometimes fell short of the required standard of making absolutely sure he attended.

"She regards herself as someone who did her best to bring him up properly.

"It would be more serious if a parent had failed to ensure the attendance of an eight or nine-year-old."

Dunk, who has previous convictions for bail offences, wept as she left the dock and said: "Thank you, Your Honour."