Boy infamous from age of 10 gets new Asbo for terrorising streets

Lewis Green smoked cannabis, swilled lager and terrorised his South Yorkshire neighbourhood when he was given the first order, but it did not change his ways.

He has now been given a second two-year Asbo after he threatened to “burn the eyes out” of another youngster and spat in the face of a teacher.

District judge John Foster, sitting at Barnsley Magistrates Court, considered a catalogue of other incidents before giving Green the order. He heard that the teenager threatened to burn down a house and smash a kitchen, and repeatedly punched someone until the victim’s relatives stepped in.

Between July 2008 and January this year he was allegedly involved in a total of 13 incidents, which also included growing cannabis, buying the drug, throwing snowballs at windows and calling the occupant of the house names. Green was given his first Asbo in March 2007 at Barnsley Magistrates Court.

Mr Foster lifted restrictions on identifying Lewis saying it was “in the public interest.”

He warned the teenager of Cooper Road, Darton, Barnsley that he would face a “substantial time” behind bars if he did not behave over the next two years, and local people deserved to be protected from him.

The boy’s solicitor Gerard Casey argued an Asbo was unnecessary because Green was given a youth rehabilitation order in January.

He said Green had been acting more maturely recently. Mr Casey added that an Asbo could hamper his progress and be “like a red rag to a bull.”

When given his Asbo at 10, Green already had a shameful list of offences along with a cannabis, cigarette and drink habit which he funded at the time by stealing from his own family. He had threatened children with a knife, vandalised a community centre and had been convicted of burglary.

He started smoking at eight, moved onto cannabis at nine and was convicted of his first criminal offence four months after his tenth birthday.

Green was excluded from several schools and education units and was then said to be beyond the control of his parents.

Back in 2007, Green fell asleep in court as he became one of the youngest children in the country ever to be given an Asbo.

At that time, the district judge Nalla Lawrence said the strongest measures were required to protect neighbours who had suffered from his behaviour.

He was put under a curfew, banned from possessing a knife and screwdriver in public and also banned from throwing stones and eggs, possessing drugs and drug-taking paraphernalia and possessing alcohol or being drunk.

Barnsley Council applied for a full Asbo at the time after he smashed a window in a local community centre.

The hearing was told of other problem behaviour, including buying cannabis, drinking, threatening another child with a knife, being abusive to people including a police community support officer, throwing a knife in a public park, stealing sweets from a shop and breaking toys at a clinic.

His mother Stephanie Green said then: “I have tried to give Lewis a good upbringing and my husband has pulled him off the streets to avoid trouble but nothing has worked. I feel guilty because I feel as if it is me to blame.”