STUDENTS have been given the chance to confront parents who park dangerously while dropping their children off at school as part of a new approach to tackling the problem.

Durham Police officers teamed up with students and teachers from Hurworth School to catch parents who parked dangerously or inappropriately during school drop-off times and make them see the errors of their ways.

Traffic around Hurworth School has been a problem for a number of months, with parents often double parking and parking on the corners of junctions and footpaths, putting pupils at risk.

Nine parents who were stopped by officers last week were given the option of going to court or facing a panel of students and teachers – all nine chose to face the students and apologised for their actions.

PC Kevin Salter, from Durham Police who led the project, said the panel had been a huge success.

He said: “I was dubious about how it was going to work but the kids have handled it very well and people have apologised and promised not to park inappropriately again.

“The kids came up with their own questions and it was really quite impressive the effect they had. I can talk to people until I’m blue in the face and not have the impact that they did.

“We had some people that came in and apologised right from the start but there were others who couldn’t see that what they had been doing was wrong, but they were put in their place and made their apologies after a few minutes.

“It’s been a really successful day and we’ll look at rolling this out at other schools. Hurworth School will also continue to monitor parking and the local PCSO will keep an eye on it.”

One of the parents who appeared before the panel said the experience had been worthwhile and had caused her to think again about her parking.

She said: “I’ve never been in trouble with the police so to get stopped was a bit of a shock. It was good to see things from the kids’ point of view and I apologised because what I did was wrong.”

School manager Maria Hall said: “The students asked some really mature questions and the response from the parents was very positive. Hopefully it will make people think about their parking.”