Parents of young tearaways have paid out hundreds of pounds to put right the damage their teenage children had caused.

The youths and their parents came face-to-face with the victim of the crime, who explained the impact such actions have.

The youths, aged 13 and 14-years-old, had broken into All Souls Community Centre on Astley Street, Astley Bridge.

The break-in happened on June 26. The youths stole two fire extinguishers and then sprayed these around a nearby car park.

Following a police investigation by the Bolton North Neighbourhood Team, CCTV footage was obtained of the incident. Officers made enquiries with local schools and as a result, five youths, aged between 13 and 14 years old, were identified.

Each youth was invited into the police station with their parents, where they admitted responsibility for the criminal damage.

 

Following on from the incident, a restorative justice conference was held at All Souls Community Centre on Wednesday, August 23, with the victim, the five youths, their parents, PCSO Mervyn Fox, PCSO Emma Goddard, Cllr Rabiya Jiva, Cllr Kevin Morris and Bolton Council's Community Safety Manager, Carlo Schroder, in attendance.

The conference allowed the victim to explain the impact the crime has had on the community centre, encouraged the youths to change their behaviour and allowed the youths to apologise directly to the victim for their actions.

A spokesman for GMP Bolton North said: "As a result, between the five youths and their parents, £520 has been paid to the community centre to repair the damage.

"Bolton Council's Community Safety Services have placed all five youths on the ABC (Acceptable Behaviour Contract) Pathway.

"Four of the youths have received first stage warning letters and one of the youths has received an ABC with conditions not to associate with the youths they caused the damage with.

"Each of them will also be sign posted to Targeted Youth Support for intervention."

Cllr Jiva and Cllr Morris explained their role as local councillors to the youths and discussed the support and interventions they can offer to prevent the youths being involved in further anti-social behaviour.

Cllr Jiva told The Bolton News: “Although it is a situation we don’t want young people involved in, on this occasion thankfully to the individual of the centre they supported us through this process, and it is important, so we don’t criminalise children and young people who have strayed away.

“It is important to make sure that youths are aware of consequences and how having a criminal record can impact them in the future, either academically or in work fields, and this was just to understand the impact they have on individuals when they commit a crime.

“It is really key that we don’t want these incidents to occur, but we were fortunate that these children weren’t criminalised.

“We had a good chat with these individuals and families, and we look forward to working with them closely, this is just a blip and the young people were very remorseful and understood the impact they had on the victim.”

Police have been cracking down on anti-social behaviour throughout the long holidays through the Safe4Summer campaign.

In July six youths were detained in Bromley Cross after causing damage to a building site.

At the launch of the campaign, Detective Chief Inspector Lisa Bradley, GMP’s lead for ASB, said: “Summer is the time of year when anti-social behaviour often spikes, causing concern and distress for local communities and acts as a drain on emergency services resources.

"The partnership is committed to tackling ASB, as we understand how distressing this type of behaviour can be and the lasting impact it can have on individuals, families and the local community.

"ASB can be caused deliberately by people wanting to inflict harm or distress, but more frequently, it is people not thinking about how their actions might be received or affect others, so we’ll be working with the public to increase people’s understanding of what ASB is.”

 

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on Twitter @chloewjourno.