A mother who could no longer afford to pay private school fees asked a council worker to forge documents to get her daughter into a leading state school, a tribunal heard yesterday.

Bernadette Hendrickson, a former education coordinator for Cardiff Council, agreed to fake official forms in order to mislead a top primary school in Newport into thinking that the five-year-old was in care.

The school was told that the girl, who was transferring from an £8,568-a-year independent school , was a “looked after child” - meaning her education was supervised by council officials.

Hendrickson, from Cardiff, who was sacked over the incident, agreed to the scam after a close friend failed on two occasions to get her daughter accepted into the primary school, which is oversubscribed.