An 11-year-old boy is the “ringleader” of a crime spree in Blackpool, MPs have heard. Conservative MP Scott Benton made the claim as he raised concerns about a “gang of teenagers” committing “hundreds” of offences in an area of the Lancashire seaside town in recent weeks.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt encouraged Mr Benton, MP for Blackpool South, to seek a debate on how to tackle anti-social behaviour. He said: “Residents in the Talbot and Brunswick area of Blackpool have been plagued by anti-social behaviour in recent weeks, with hundreds of different crimes being committed by a gang of teenagers.
“The ringleader is an 11-year-old boy who has been responsible for over 80 different offences, including assaulting a female police officer. Sadly the efforts of Lancashire Police to bring him to justice have been compromised by Blackpool Council’s children’s directorate, who refuse to criminalise teenagers. Can we have a debate in this House regarding anti-social behaviour, the misery it causes to communities and whether the police have the appropriate powers to tackle these problems?”
Ms Mordaunt replied: “I’m so sorry that his community are suffering from this series of anti-social behaviour and criminal activity. He will know that it takes a team of people to redress this situation, it’s about education, it’s about the local authority, it’s about a good policing approach and I think this will be an excellent topic for a debate, and I’d encourage him to apply for it in the usual way.”
Blackpool Council said in a statement: “It is completely untrue to suggest that there has been any interference from children’s social care in the work of the police to address criminal acts or youth anti-social behaviour. There is strong evidence of joint working across our town.“
It said the police, council and community organisations have “worked hard to address concerns” of residents and engage vulnerable children and young people in “positive activities”. The statement added: “Whilst some serious and impactful issues remain, we have seen a drop in the number of incidents in the specific wards concerned – we will continue to work to further drive down these instances.
“The Youth Justice Partnership in Blackpool rightly takes a ‘child first’ approach to anti-social behaviour among children, but this does not mean that offending is taken lightly. To suggest that an 11-year-old is the ringleader of a gang of teenagers is both harmful to individual children, and detracts from the very real national issue of county lines, where vulnerable children are exploited and used to commit criminal acts to protect adults from arrest and prosecution. Uninformed comments are unhelpful and add nothing to the work that is under way to address these issues.”
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