Dad fined for taking son out of school for anniversary of tsunami that killed his brothers

A SINGLE father says he is upset and angry at being fined for taking his son out of school so they could attend the 20th anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed his two brothers.

- by OLIVIER VERGNAULT

Jack Coop decided to take 12-year-old Leven out of school to support Jack's mother Sharon Howard as she made the emotional trip back to the beach resort of Khao Lak, near Phuket in Thailand, where she lost sons Taylor, six, and eight-year-old Mason, as well as her fiancé, David Page.

David, 44, had proposed on Christmas Day, the day before the earthquake and resulting tsunami in which 227,898 people died.

At the time of the anniversary Jack's mum, Sharon Howard, told journalists she had thought about Taylor, Mason and David every day for the past 20 years and needed to make the 6,000-mile journey from her home in Hayle to Khao Lak.

Jack, 16 at the time of the tsunami, said he had stayed behind in Britain to be with his grandfather, who was ill with cancer and needed to go to Thailand to be there for his mother on such an important anniversary.

As a single father, he said, he couldn't leave Leven, in Year 8 at St Ives School, to cope on his own.

"I put in a request for absence to take Leven out so we could go and be with my mum', he said. "That was denied.

"I've tried to appeal to the head teacher but he never had the decency to speak to me.