LOCK UP OUR SON
Parents plead with judge not to ‘sugar coat’ teen tearaway in roof stand-off
A TEARAWAY aged 14 has been locked up after his desperate parents pleaded with a judge to stop ‘wrapping him up in cotton wool’ and take him off the streets.
The teenager’s constant offending drove them to despair and they resorted to locking him inside the family home. But he simply forced his way out and carried on offending.
Community punishments had no effect and were often ‘fun’ for him, they said.
The situation came to a head last month when the boy left a trail of destruction during an eight-hour rooftop stand-off near his home in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.
His father had accused him of stealing from their house to pay for cannabis and refused to let him inside.
So the boy climbed on to the roof of a three- storey semi- detached house and hurled tiles on to the street below.
He caused so much damage to a Fiat car that it was an insurance write- off, Grimsby Youth Court heard.
Kate Fairburn, prosecuting, said the boy also threw tiles at a person and shouted: ‘ I’ll f****** kill you and your family.’ He also admitted crashing a stolen car into other vehicles, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
His father urged the judge to impose a custodial sentence telling the court: ‘I wish people would stop sugar-coating him and wrapping him up in cotton wool. Something needs to be done.’ District Judge Daniel Curtis gave the youth a one-year detention and training order after reading a letter from his parents which requested he be locked up.
They wrote: ‘We as parents have brought him up to know the difference between right and wrong, and for the past 18 months he has chosen on many occasions to choose the wrong option.’ Locking him up would at least ‘give us peace in knowing that where he is he is safe and away from possible harm,’ they added. They wrote that another youth offending order would be pointless’ because ‘ he has blatantly flouted the ‘ rules by being in breach on numerous occasions’. They wrote: ‘If we are going to be fully honest, we believe that he needs a custodial sentence to maybe wake him up to the real world.’ The couple urged the judge: ‘Please do not fail our son, please act now.’ The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, admitted affray and criminal damage on September 8. He also admitted earlier offences of burglary, aggravated vehicle taking, driving while banned and driving with no insurance. His sentence means he will be locked up for six months before being given an equal period of training. The boy told the court: ‘I’m sorry for my actions. I feel really stupid and that’s it.’ Passing sentence, Judge Curtis told him: ‘I fear that you are potentially a young man who has a career of crime ahead of him. You simply can’t go on like this.’
After the hearing his parents praised police but said community sentences handed out to the tearaway were more ‘fun’ than punishment. His mother said: ‘Yes he does do a bit of community payback and things, but most of the time they go to the centre, play snooker and have a laugh. There are even Fridays where they go out for the day fishing. ‘My son has had different referral orders and bail conditions imposed on him, but what use are they really? He just ignores them and does whatever he wants.’ His father said his son was solely to blame, adding: ‘He has even been stealing things from us and his young siblings in order to sell them for drugs.’ He said the town was ‘full of kids running wild and their parents just don’t seem to care about them’. ‘When you’re trying to raise your kid in an environment like that, it is tough,’ he added.
‘It would give us peace’