A BOY aged 14 has appeared in court following a confrontation between teenage groups on the Millennium Bridge.

He was one of four juveniles caught after they chased a youth from the bridge into a garden and set upon him.

Prosecutor Vivienne Walsh said the group attacked the victim at about 9.30pm on Sunday, June 10, as he walked across the bridge towards Rowntree Park.

The attackers chased him into a garden on Bishopthorpe Road. He managed to escape briefly, but was then punched to the ground and kicked.

The 14-year-old in court had delivered two punches to the victim's face and kicked him in the body as he lay on the ground. Three other teenagers also attacked him. The whole incident left the victim with swelling and bruises.

The 14-year-old told police the victim had started the incident and had previously chased him on two separate occasions.

The prosecution accepted the boy was not the instigator of the trouble or the main protagonist.

But he was the only one to appear in court because police had given him a final warning in November for a racially-aggravated public order offence.

Police dealt with three more youths without charging them. One had never been in trouble before, the other two had previously received the lesser caution called a reprimand.

The 14-year-old, from south York, pleaded guilty to unlawful violence.

Justices gave him a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £30 costs, saying he had played a minor part in a joint enterprise.

For the boy, Jeremy Scott said the incident involved two groups, one of four youths and the other of three youths and three girls. Initially the boy and his friend had been trying to get away from the victim's group.

Since the bridge incident, his mother had grounded him and made him work at home painting and gardening. He had received his final warning for remonstrating with a coloured person who was smashing milk bottles in the boy's street.

Updated: 11:43 Wednesday, August 08, 2001