A 16-year-old boy who waged a campaign of violent shop robberies in Bedford in the early part of this year was given an 18 month detention and training order on Thursday, May 28, 2020.
The boy, who can’t be named because of his age, appeared at Luton Crown Court via a video link from the detention centre where he has been held on remand since his arrest in February of this year.
He pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to commit robberies.
The boy was part of gang of youths who targeted small corner shops and then struck with their faces masked.
A judge said they had behaved like a “pack of hounds.”
In the main, they carried out the robberies late in the evening when they knew there would be just a one or two members of staff working and few customers.
The judge told him “The story of your behaviour sounds like a pack of hounds feeding off the excitement and feeding off your dishonest gains.”
Judge Mensah said it appeared the boy had thought it “cool and clever” to hang around with a bunch of wasters, but she said if he didn’t learn from this he was “doomed” to spend much of his life behind bars.
Read the full story in next week’s Beds Bulletin pick up your copy in Sainsbury’s or the Harpur Centre.