Teens on joyride smash into cars

The 16-year-old Lytham boy was with two other teenagers when his mother’s car was taken.

The defendant, whose identity can not be revealed for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to the aggravated taking of his mum’s car.

Philip Hall, prosecuting, said the boy’s mother’s car was taken from her home on July 7 at 7.30pm.

It was driven around Lytham, colliding with a Mercedes, a Range Rover, a Renault Megane and a garage, causing thousands of pounds of damage.

A witness, at one point, saw a teenage boy running alongside the car which had been taken, trying to get in the vehicle.

The prosecutor said the prosecution could not prove who had been driving the car.

Suzanne Mugford, defending, said the defendant, who had no previous convictions, had learning difficulties .

The boy told the judge he was not originally involved in taking the car.

He said he was not in the car at first when it was driven into the car park of a block of flats, where it crashed into the Range Rover and the Megane.

The boy added: “I was trying to stop what was going on.

“I then got in the car and it hit the Mercedes and the garage.”

He was sentenced to a six-month referral order, banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay £85 costs with £15 victims’ surcharge by District Judge Jeff Brailsford, sitting at Blackpool Youth Court.

The boy’s mother, who wept throughout the hearing, was told by the judge that he would have to make the order – to pay the financial penalties involved in the case – against her as her son had no
income.

The judge added that he hoped the mother would get her son to pay her back in some way.