How I got that ASBO

“Ryan Wilkinson first came to the attention of the enforcement team in May 2003, when he was eight years old.

We’d been getting reports about damage to the council property where he lived with his mother and complaints from neighbours about his aggressive behaviour. He was smashing windows, starting fires and he assaulted someone.

Ryan was below the age of criminal responsibility, so we served a notice seeking possession and an antisocial behaviour order warning on his mother on 3 July, on grounds of rent arrears, Ryan’s behaviour and the condition of the property. A month later, she decided to abandon the property.

At the time I was serving on a race hate panel with the police, and in November that year we had reports that Ryan, by now nine, had committed a hate crime and that his mother had also been accused. That gave me an in, because we now knew where they were living – in private accommodation – and I found out who the landlord was.

On 18 November, I issued another ASBO warning on Ryan’s mother. Even though we told her we’d be coming, she wasn’t home so I had to put it through the letterbox.

I notified social services, and we had a case conference on 16 December, by which time Ryan had been excluded from school. We kept getting reports of physical assault, damage to property, verbal abuse – and he was being identified very clearly.

Their private landlord was by now looking at taking action against them because of damage to the property and Ryan’s effect on the local community. Since Ryan’s mother could not be given another council home because of previous legal action, I found her another private tenancy. Their new neighbours started to complain within a week and I knew from their descriptions they were talking about Ryan and his mother.

In February 2004, I had a meeting with Ryan, his mother, their social worker and the police to discuss Ryan’s behaviour.

His mother signed a parental responsibility agreement. It was a very difficult interview – at points, Ryan stormed out.

He tends to hang around with older kids. He picks up a lot of stuff from them – for example, he knew when to say “no comment” during the interview – and they use him for criminal acts because of his age.

We needed to find some diversionary activities for Ryan: he wasn’t in school, he had all this time on his hands and kids get bored. Social services freed some money for his mother to spend some quality time with him, taking him swimming for example. She was all for it, but I later found out she only took him once or twice, and reports about his behaviour kept coming.

When he was nearly 10, the age of criminal responsibility, we opened a file on him. We had to make sure we could document everything, because taking action could be difficult as he was so young. My statement was 60 pages long – they’re usually more like 10 or 12.

On 26 July, with social services present, Ryan’s mother signed another parental responsibility agreement and we got Ryan his first acceptable behaviour contract. At the interview, I put allegations to him, in language he could understand, and asked if they were true.

He admitted them, but he wouldn’t agree not to associate with particular individuals.

But the reports continued, and on 21 October we decided we had to issue Ryan with an ASBO warning – it was three pages long, with 51 separate incidents listed. When you saw it laid out, you’d forget you were dealing with a child.

When the warning didn’t change his behaviour, we convened a panel with workers from the council’s youth services, education, social services, housing and police, and they approved an ASBO.

We decided to obtain an interim ASBO quickly to give the community a bit of respite and we got it on 15 December.

There are 16 separate terms, covering offences such as burglary, solvent abuse, threatening behaviour, offensive weapons and arson. He is not allowed to steal, threaten or abuse solvents in the whole of West Yorkshire. There are also 17 named people he must not associate with and four exclusion zones. He must also respect a curfew between 7pm and 7.30am. The ASBO lasts until 2010, when Ryan will be 15.

We’ve already received reports that he’s breached it, but it’s up to the police to deal with that. Here is a child who is really slipping through the net. He desperately needs help. I’m hoping the ASBO will mean he gets it.”