What price a mother's rights? Imagine Shona's shock when she found her 15-year-old had bulimia. Worse, her school and a GP had kept it from her for months - even as it became life threatening

The first inkling I had that something was awry came from the sight of my daughter's knuckles. Over a period of a few weeks at the end of last year, they'd gradually become raw and bloodied.

She looked like she'd done ten rounds in a bare-knuckle boxing ring. She looked, if I'd been attending properly, like a 15-year-old who seriously needed help. 

Yet Annie is our easiest child. Non-demanding, almost always sunny by nature and happy to get on with life without causing any of the dramas her two teenage siblings, Flo, 17, and Monty, 13, have been wont, in recent years, to create.

She told me she must have been picking her hands at night while she was asleep. Something, deep down, registered that this didn't seem right. But it didn't seem so odd as to warrant an overreaction. 

How can it be possible for a child — and, make no mistake here, at 15 that's what Annie (right) still is — to be able to hide something as potentially life threatening a bulimia from her parents, asks SHONA SIBARY (left)

So I bought her cotton gloves to wear in bed, checked that she wasn't anxious about anything and made an appointment for her to see our family doctor.

It's easy with hindsight to berate myself for not suspecting something sooner. Even when the receptionist at the surgery told me Annie was no longer registered there — that her medical records had been transferred to another doctor — even then, this didn't trigger my maternal radar.

Like an idiot I didn't question why my child was now a patient at a surgery on the other side of town. I just assumed it was some administrative error and insisted they get her back on their register.

And then one evening in January, when we were alone in the house, Annie sat on the sofa, burst into tears and said: 'I need to tell you something.'

Can there be any other sentence more likely to strike fear into a mother's heart? My first worst-case scenario was 'drugs' and the second 'pregnancy'.

The news Annie actually broke to me was that she has been suffering from bulimia for 18 months.

How could I and my husband Keith have missed this? How had she been vomiting up every meal cooked for her all this time without me noticing?

After all, Annie, while a trim size eight to ten, has always loved food. Even when she was very small, she'd happily try new things — she has a healthy appetite — and always cleared her plate.

On family holidays, she'd be the one willing to tuck into exotic treats such as lobster and mussels while my other two daughters, Flo, and Dolly, now six, would insist on fish fingers and chips.

I had been pleased to have a teenage daughter who seemed to have an uncomplicated relationship with food and was fun to take to restaurants.

She also looked exactly the same — she hadn't lost any weight (something I now know is common with bulimia, as calories are absorbed before food is thrown up) and I hadn't noticed her leaving food or any other behavioural changes.

She was as happy, intelligent and lively as ever. We don't often eat together as a family, but when we did there was no sign anything was wrong.

As a mother, I can hand-on-heart say there was nothing other than her hands to concern me.

What I know now is that raw knuckles are a classic indication of bulimia. The abrasions were caused by the teeth on Annie's skin when she shoved her hands in her mouth to make herself sick.

Even as she was dropping her bombshell I was aware that what I said in this moment was crucial. Sifting through my utter horror, I decided that at least she had finally told me — and any feelings of guilt should be shoved firmly into my back pocket. This was, after all, about Annie and not my perceived failings as her mother.

And then she told me something else — something, I'm ashamed to say, which almost eclipsed the revelation she has a serious eating disorder.

According to Annie, her private school in Devon — which she attends as a day pupil — had known for almost five months. They had registered her with their GP. He was the one who, without my permission, had taken over her medical records, then put her on medication she'd been taking for weeks.

He had done this because Annie told him she was vomiting up blood — a sure sign her stomach lining was being irreparably damaged.

Surely I'm not alone in feeling shocked to the core by this? How can it be possible for a child — and, make no mistake here, at 15 that's what Annie still is — to be able to hide something as potentially life threatening as this from her parents. Her school and doctor knew, but had not informed us.

Annie confessed to her mother that she had been suffering from bulimia for 18 months (file picture, posed)

It feels, and I'm not sorry if this sounds an over-reaction, like a violation — some awful Orwellian nightmare where mothers are robbed of their right to parent at the whim of a controlling nanny state. Yet — unbelievably — it is apparently wholly legal, and could happen to your child, too.

I discovered this when I marched into Annie's school the next day demanding an explanation.

'Oh, we're so glad she has finally told you,' the Head of Pastoral Care said. 'We were trying to encourage her to but, because she is 'Gillick competent', we had to respect her confidentiality.'

For those of you who, like me, aren't au fait with legalese, the 'Gillick Test' is named after Victoria Gillick, who, in 1983, challenged health service guidance that allowed her daughters to receive confidential contraceptive advice without her knowledge before the age of 16.

She lost her fight to stop doctors prescribing the pill without her consent in a case that, two years later, went to the House of Lords.

There it was ruled that it was lawful for doctors to put under-16s on the pill if they were regarded as intelligent and mature enough to understand what was involved — that they were 'Gillick competent'.

One of the Law Lords who made the judgment, Lord Fraser, detailed the criteria (known as the Fraser guidelines) that are used to assess a child's competency, including that the child will understand the professional's advice and that they cannot be persuaded to tell their parents.

As a mother of two teenage daughters I understand girls reach a certain age where they don't necessarily want to share the fact that they are sexually active with a parent.

But what Annie's situation tells me is that the 'Gillick competence' argument is, surely, being widely abused? How can a law put in place to protect a sexually active teenager be applied to a young girl with a potentially serious health condition?

How can a law put in place to protect a sexually active teenager be applied to a young girl with a potentially serious health condition? asks Shona

When I put this to the school they reiterated that they had to respect Annie's confidence and she was old enough to understand her right to privacy. This is flawed reasoning. Annie didn't want me to know she was making herself sick because she knew I would do everything to stop her. And, at that point, she didn't want to be stopped. As any expert in eating disorders will tell you, the sufferer will go to great lengths to hide their behaviour.

S o is it acting in Annie's 'best interests' not to tell her parents — the two people in a primary position to help her?

It's all very well for a school to talk about a child's 'rights' but where were they over Christmas when Annie was, unknown to me, throwing up her roast turkey? Where were they every weekend when — she now confesses — she made herself scarce after breakfast, and sneaked off after supper just to vomit?

All the school did was pass Annie — who was then just 14 — on to their nurse, who contacted the local doctor they use for children who board — which she doesn't.

Neither he, nor they, got her to an eating disorder therapist. She told them more than four months ago. In this time she has had no expert help and her bulimia has taken a stronger hold.

Additionally, how can a doctor place more importance on a 15-year-old's right to privacy than on letting her parents know she has a life-threatening side-effect of bulimia causing potentially irreparable damage to her stomach?

But it seems that under the cover of 'Gillick competence' a child under 16 can move doctor and agree to go on medication without any discussion with a parent if she understands fully the implications. Which Annie assured the doctor she did.

I felt — still feel — furious and helpless. When I approached NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, I was told its guidelines to healthcare professionals are as follows:

'People with eating disorders can be concerned that the involvement of their relatives may breach their rights to confidentiality. Rules of confidentiality apply in consultations between people with eating disorders and healthcare professionals, and you should be told that these will only be breached if you are at significant risk and where informing a family member is likely to reduce that risk. Children and young people have the same right to confidentiality as adults.'

I believe it would have reduced Annie's risk for a family member to have been told.

BEAT, the UK's leading charity for anyone affected by an eating disorder, agrees. A spokesperson told me: 'While each case should be treated individually it is almost always preferable to have a parent involved, not least because some of the treatments available for eating disorders involve the whole family.'

But it seems that the law, as it stands, is at odds with this. And I don't understand how this can be morally right.

Annie is now attending an eating disorder clinic and receiving weekly sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy. It turns out she was taking three times the correct dosage of medication prescribed and effectively overdosing herself. She's dyslexic, you see, and struggles to follow written instructions.

Of course this is something that would never have happened if I'd been involved. Thankfully, there don't appear to have been any serious consequences.

Annie is happy for me to write this article because she now understands she wasn't thinking straight and hopes this hindsight may help other girls with similar issues.

That's the thing with teenagers. They can be fickle. It's not something I would expect a doddery old Lord to remember, but I could surely be forgiven for assuming a secondary school might know this?

And as for Annie's now ex-GP — because, obviously, she's back with our family practice — I'd like to ask him why, when he knows the damage bulimia can cause, would he leave a struggling teenager to cope, without the support of her loving parents? To prescribe medication to a vulnerable girl that her mother knows nothing about?

But, guess what? He can't talk to me. It would, apparently, be a breach of patient confidentiality.

• Has your child's school kept you in the dark over their welfare? Tell us at femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk