A CWMBRAN mum could face prison after failing to send her teenage daughter to school.

Joanna Griffiths, 31, from The Crescent, St Dials, Cwmbran, was yesterday found guilty at Abergavenny magistrates court of knowingly failing to ensure her 15-year-old daughter Alexandra attended Llantarnam comprehensive.

She claimed her daughter was too old to be physically forced out of the house when she refused to go.

But Torfaen council, who brought the prosecution, argued Griffiths had not done enough to address the problems.

The court heard Alex, a bright, articulate girl who turns 16 next week, had only attended 22 out of a possible 200 occasions at school, between September 14, 2007, and February 2, this year.

Andrew Davies, prosecuting, problems with Alex's attendance started when she was just nine-years-old.

This is the fifth time Griffiths has been found guilty of failing to send Alex to school since 2002 and Mr Davies claimed she had not cooperated with the school or the council.

He outlined missed meetings, failure to respond to phone calls and said the situation was, "a sad and sorry state of affairs."

"This is a clear example of a mother failing to provide the proper and appropriate guidance for her daughter," he said.

Griffiths said her daughter did not like school and was embarrassed when teachers made jokes about her attendance.

She also claimed she had tried everything possible to make Alex go to school and said there was a lack of help available.

On one occasion she tried to drag her daughter down the street and another time she had slapped her. But she said her daughter slapped her back, so she backed down to avoid a physical confrontation.

She also said she tried various punishments to get Alex to school, including grounding her, removing her mobile phone or banning use of the computer, all without success.

Single-mum Griffiths, who was just 14 when she fell pregnant with Alex, had also suffered ongoing severe post-natal depression and anxiety.

In recent years the father of her second child had died suddenly and her mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

A close family friend Rhiannon Walding described Alex as having a "phobia" of school.

She said on school mornings Griffiths would ask, then beg her daughter to get up, at which Alex would scream and shout abuse.

They once tried to drag her from the bed, but Ms Walding said she believed using any more force would have amounted to child abuse.

Magistrates warned Griffiths they were keeping all sentencing options open and that she could face a prison sentence.