A TEENAGER who admitted he was hopelessly addicted to crime has once again escaped a jail sentence - this time for hurling a chair at his mum during a frightening assault and stealing alcohol from an off-licence.

The 17-year-old also punched his mother in the face and pushed her around her home as she held her baby grandson, a court heard.

The teenager - who cannot be named for legal reasons - has already branded the youth justice system a joke.

He told the Evening Press in September how he had committed hundreds of crimes, safe in the knowledge that the police could not touch him because of his age.

Yesterday, the youth appeared before city magistrates and we tried to lift reporting restrictions so the public could be alerted to his behaviour.

But magistrates refused our application and said it would not be in the defendant's interests to be named and shamed.

Prosecutor Jenni Kilvington told the court the teenager assaulted his mother last November.

His parents answered their front door and found him drunk.

After a confrontation, the teenager was booted out.

But Mrs Kilvington said that when his father left the house, he returned and continued acting aggressively to his mother, who at the time was holding a baby.

The court heard he started pushing his mother around the room before smashing a glass picture frame with his fist.

The juvenile then pulled her towards him and punched her in the face.

He then hurled a chair at her but it missed and smashed a glass cabinet, causing £100 damage.

The teenager was arrested after being restrained when his father returned.

Mrs Kilvington said the youth's mother, who is not pursuing compensation, was left nursing a sore face, arm and back.

The 17-year-old also admitted two theft charges: stealing six bottles of Stella Artois and a bottle of cider from the same shop, Bishopthorpe Spar.

Helen Morris, mitigating, said her client was responding well to an existing tagging and curfew order, part of a nine-month suspended sentence for burglary.

The defendant apologised to magistrates and admitted the prospect of jail frightened him.

The youth admitted charges of assault by beating, criminal damage and two theft counts, on December 16 last year, when he appeared for sentencing yesterday.

Magistrates handed him a one-year intensive supervision and surveillance order. They warned that if it was not completed he would be jailed. The defendant was also ordered to pay £13.13 compensation to Spar.

Asked afterwards whether he still thought youth justice was a joke, the teenager said he had no comment to make.

In the September interview, he admitted he was "amazed" at never being given a jail term.

"I guess I've got a problem," he said. "I guess I'm addicted to crime."

But he said he was determined to beat his crime addiction, which he said had included criminal damage, threatening people with a golf club when drunk, burglary and possession of a flick knife.

The youth also claimed police armed response units had been called out three times to incidents involving him.

Why we cannot name him

YOUNG people aged ten to 17 cannot be named when they appear in a youth court.

Newspapers are barred from printing a name, address, school, workplace, photograph or anything that may lead to identification.

Newspapers can apply to have the ban lifted if they successfully argue it would be in the public's interest to be alerted to the defendant's persistent or serious offending record, and if naming might prevent further offending.

Children under the age of ten cannot be prosecuted for a crime, and once a teenager turns 18 he or she appears before adult courts and details can be freely published.

Updated: 10:36 Wednesday, February 11, 2004