When ASBOs attack

A court has tightened up an Asbo handed out to 14-year-old twins after they exploited loopholes in the order to continue their misbehaving.

Charlie and Aaron Brown were made subject to the order in March last year, banning them from causing trouble in specific areas of Portsmouth, Hants.

But the pair managed to get round the terms of the court order by shifting their misbehaviour to areas of the city not covered by the Asbo.

Now Portsmouth magistrate Paul Thompson has added a clause to their Asbo banning them from causing anti-social behaviour in any place.

And he extended the order against the pair for an extra five months until next August.

The ASBO already bans them from doing things that are already banned. Why aren’t they actually being punished? You don’t need an ASBO to tell you that you can’t do things that are illegal.

Even if they breached their ASBO they wouldn’t be sent to prison or a young offender’s prison as judges have been told not to jail those that breach their ASBO so the police and courts are effectively powerless to do anything to stop them.