Teen gets youth detention after Prosecco bottle attack

Friday 07 January 2022

A "prolific young offender" has been sentenced to nine months' youth detention, after hitting a boy over the head with a bottle of Prosecco in a supermarket, leaving a pregnant store worker fearing for her safety.

The teen - who cannot be named due to his age - was also sentenced in the Royal Court on Thursday for kicking a man at a café, receiving clothing stolen from Roulette, breaking a car park's hand sanitiser dispenser and damaging a public toilet bin last year.

The supermarket attack happened just weeks after the teen was arrested after being found in possession of two stolen designer jackets.

The Court heard that the dependant was with a group last summer when he spotted people he had had disagreements with inside the supermarket.

Some pushing and shoving between the defendant and one of the youths ensued, before he picked up a small bottle of Prosecco from the store's fridge and hit the victim in the head, causing him to fall to the ground.

The victim said he suffered amnesia immediately after the assault and went to the hospital with a headache - he was admitted so doctors could keep an eye on him.

Pictured: The teenager was sentenced in the Royal Court yesterday. 

A member of staff, who was 20 weeks pregnant at the time, said the affray had made her feel "frightened" and "scared that they might hurt me and my baby". The store's supervisor said she was left shaking and so fearful that she found it "difficult to use the phone and call the Police."

That month, the young man was further charged with ripping off a hand sanitiser dispenser at Sand Street carpark and trampling on it, and maliciously damaging a bin from a toilet in Millennium Park in August, which cost £69.95 to replace.

Months later, the teen was also charged with assaulting a man in a café after he was told to take his feet off the table and "have some respect" for the owner.

The boy then picked up a chair as if to throw it at the man, before putting down the chair - he and another member of his group then approached the man and his work colleague.

Punches were thrown, and the boy kicked the man, who slapped him in return. As a result of the attack, the man suffered a bruised arm.

The Court heard that the young man had committed a total of 24 offences within 18 months.

Prosecuting, Crown Advocate Richard Pedley recommended nine months of youth detention, saying the boy's track record meant that putting him on community service "would be setting him up to fail", and that he had been assessed as being at a "high risk of committing further violent offences."

He also noted that a psychiatric report concluded that a custodial sentence was "in the defendant's and the public's best interest."

Defending the boy, Advocate Julia-Anne Dix highlighted a lack of stability in his life, noting that he had been through several different social workers in the past year.

She noted he had suffered "significant trauma" in his early years, and had "a number of behavioural difficulties".

Pictured: The young man was sentenced to nine months' youth detention at Greenfields.

"I would urge the court to take into account the guilty pleas, age of defendant and the fact he has not been given the opportunity to complete community service previously," she said, moving for a non-custodial sentence.

She also argued that the psychiatrist's report did "not give an accurate depiction of the defendant", as the psychiatrist had not met him for long and built up "a rapport" with him.

Handing down the Court's nine-month sentence, Royal Court Commissioner Sir William Bailhache said: "...In our view, no other method of dealing with you is appropriate, both because you have a history of failure to respond to non-custodial penalties, and it's not clear you are willing to respond to them."

The Commissioner, who was sitting with Jurats Jerry Ramsden and Kim Averty, added that the Tesco Alliance offence was "so serious that a non-custodial sentence cannot be justified."

He later added: "Now, we consider that there is an opportunity for you in Greenfields to put your life back on track. It's quite important that you listen to this, and I can see that you don't want to, but it is quite important that you do... Your life stretches out ahead of you and you will have choices to make in that life.

"Nobody else can make these choices but you... only you can."