Most people cannot wait to finish high school, but it seems that the lure of being a pom-pom-bearing cheerleader just one last time proved too much to bear for one American mother.

Wendy Brown, 34, stole her teenage daughter’s identity, enrolled at Ashwaubenon High School, and even tried out for the cheerleading squad at the school near Green Bay in Wisconsin, in the American Mid-West.

Brown was given a cheerleading locker, went to a pool party with other students and even attended a class, but was caught out by truancy officers when she failed to turn up for school one day last August.

Her teachers reported the "student" for truancy and the mother’s elaborate ruse to re-live the life of a teenager was eventually uncovered when she was found in a police cell, where she’d been charged over a separate forgery conviction.

Yesterday Brown was committed to three years in a psychiatric unit after a court found her not guilty of identity theft because of mental impairment.

Court documents revealed that Brown "stated that she wanted to get her high school degree and be a cheerleader because she had no childhood and was trying to regain a part of her life she missed".

Police said that she had a history of fraud and were not surprised that she had been able to convince people she was her 15-year-old daughter, who is living with a relative in another US state.

"Ms Brown's criminal history says she's been involved in fraud and deceptive practices across the country for most of her adult life," said Lieutenant Jody Crocker, an Ashwaubenon Public Safety officer. "It comes to no surprise to us that she was able to pull something like this off."

"I can only guess if history repeats itself her motive has something to do with money. Unless we take it at face value that she wanted to go and relive her childhood. I personally don't buy that."

Students at the school said they thought that Brown – a youthful-looking blonde – appeared suspiciously older that the rest of the students, but were not too concerned because she had the convincing demeanour of a teenager.

"She did look a little insignificantly older, but you didn't want to question it," Spencer Corpus, a fellow student at Ashwaubenon, told CBS News. "You just go, ' Aw, alright, whatever'."

Another student, Hope Edlebeck, said: "I thought it was really bizarre. It's just something you never hear. A 33-year-old going to school."

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