Mom jailed for trying to get son in school

London: An Indian-origin woman is facing a one-year jail term in Britain for providing a false address to get her son admitted to a leading state school, a British newspaper has reported.

Forty one-year-old Mranil Patel has admitted putting her mother's address as her own on an application form when trying to get her five-year-old son Rhys Patel into Pinner Park First School in Harrow, according to the 'Daily Mail'.

Her mother, Mrudula, lives in a 200,000 pounds flat within the catchment area of Pinner Park.

The "fraud" was detected when Harrow council officials checked Patel's address against council tax records. And, they found that she was registered as living at her hubby's 300,000 pounds house three miles away.

Now, she has been charged with "fraud by false representation" under new powers created in 2006 and is due to appear at Harrow Magistrates' Court later this month. And, if convicted, Patel faces up to 12 months in jail or a fine of 5,000 pounds, the report said.

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Patel, who has three children and works for the Royal Bank of Scotland, has admitted putting her mother's address but claims it was a mistake.

"In January last year, my marriage was going through some difficulties so I moved out to my mother's house. I had left my husband and had no intention of coming back so I put down my mother's address as my own and tried to get Rhys into Pinner Park, which is just across the road.

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"But three weeks later I reconciled with my husband and moved back, without realising it would have a bearing on the school application," she was quoted as saying.