A teenage drug dealer from Mile Oak stopped turning up when he was subject to a youth rehabilitation order, effectively going missing.
The 17-year-old had rendered the community sentence “unworkable”, a court was told.
The boy was brought back before West Sussex Youth Court, in Christchurch Road, Worthing, where he was sentenced to … another youth rehabilitation order.
He was also charged with having drugs again – heroin as before – which he denied.
Despite a history of failing to surrender to custody – on top of skipping his sentence – the boy was given bail until a trial scheduled for Thursday 14 June at Worthing.
The court was told on Thursday (19 April) that the boy, who the law does not permit to be named, had committed a string of offences.
Shortly after his 16th birthday – almost two years ago – he resisted two constables in the execution of their duty – Daniel Jones and Dobrawa Kozlowska.
He burgled the Good Companions pub, in Dyke Road, Brighton, in September 2016, stealing a laptop, 11 chef’s knives, three fire extinguishers and a till, worth about £1,200.
Three months later he was caught selling heroin by an undercover police officer in Dean Street, just off Western Road, Brighton.
A few days later he was due to answer bail but failed to surrender to custody – not for the first time.
But the next day he stole a £125 North Face tracksuit from JD Sports, in Churchill Square, Brighton.
And then he assaulted a store manager, Bartholomeus Coetzee, in nearby Clarence Square.
Since then he has attacked a woman in Mile Oak and smashed an incense jar and a door at his home, causing criminal damage.
Despite failing to fulfil the terms of the youth rehabilitation order which was imposed last year, he was given another one.
He was told to carry out 50 hours of unpaid work over the next year, supervised by a member of the Brighton Youth Offending Team.
His forthcoming trial will be told that he was caught with heroin in Hollingdean, which he disputes.
Another teenager, a 16-year-old boy from Whitehawk, appeared before the same court on Thursday.
The boy took number plates and went for a ride in a stolen Volkswagen Polo. The driver of the stolen VW crashed into a Mini.
The boy was given a one-year driving ban.
He also burgled a property in Leatherhead, Surrey, and stole three laptops with an estimated value of just over £2,000.
He was ordered to compensate the owner of the laptops, to wear an electronic tag for three months and to obey a night-time curfew. The boy was also made the subject of a youth rehabilitation order.
Reading the above only highlights yet again how weak and afraid our judiciary is when they keep handing out these pathetic sentences, which in the public’s eye are totally inadequate punishment for the crime commited
Pĺ.
Come on, you judges /magistrates get into the real world and put these criminals behind bars not back into society with these ridiculous suspended sentences which puts them back on the street to commit crime again.