Boy who threatened to stab girl has sentence reduced

The youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, blocked the girl's path, threatened to stab her and then reached threateningly towards his pocket during the terrifying attack on March 20 '“ although no knife was ever produced, a court in London heard. He has just turned 13.

The boy eventually ran off with her wallet after hitting her and putting his hands across her mouth to stop anyone hearing her screams.

He admitted robbery at Chichester Crown Court in April and was sent to a young offenders' institution for four years.

The court was also told by the boy's counsel, Sarah Woods, that within the last few weeks he had pleaded guilty at St Albans Crown Court to a separate attempted robbery '” pre-dating the Worthing offence '”for which he was given a three-year concurrent sentence.

Judge Barker QC described the case as "obviously worrying". Sitting with Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice Bean, he agreed to cut the boy's total sentence for both offences from four years to three.

He said the youngster had endured enormous problems in his childhood '“ his mother had drugs problems '“ and, although intelligent, he had kept bad company.

The judge said: "This was a serious, frightening and unacceptable piece of behaviour against a lone female and the crown court judge was right to take a serious view."

However, allowing the appeal and reducing the boy's sentence, the judge said that, in the case of such a youthful defendant, the court had to consider all sentencing options.