A 12-year-old York car criminal is today starting a year-long custodial sentence after justices declared he is a danger to the public.

He is, by three years, the youngest child ever locked up by York Youth Court.

It heard a catalogue of nearly 20 offences in seven weeks during which the boy had snatched vehicles and driven:

a car from York to Rochdale along the M62

a minibus from Primrose Valley near Filey to York

a car at 60 mph and performed a U-turn in rush hour traffic in south York.

Presiding justice Gurdeep Chadha said: "You are really causing a risk to the members of the public and also a risk to yourself.

"It is quite clear you have a total disregard for the authorities and it is only a detention and training order that can sufficiently deal with you."

She and her two colleagues gave the boy a 12-month order, banned him from driv-ing for a year and ordered him to take an extended driving test before getting a full licence.

They also praised his foster parents for their efforts on his behalf.

The boy from south York pleaded guilty to snatching six vehicles between August 15 and September 27 including damaging them or driving them dangerously, sev-eral offences of driving without insurance and without a licence, stealing a scooter in a garden shed burglary in south York, and three separate shop thefts of two mobile phones - and an ice lolly.

His solicitor John Howard said the boy accepted he must be locked up to stop him offending.

"He asks to have contact with his mother and his young sister who is only a year old and have regular visitors," said Mr Howard.

The boy had had medical problems on birth because his mother was a heroin addict at the time, as was his father. When his natural parents split up, the mother's new partner assaulted her and her son.

The boy was taken with a three-man so-cial services escort straight from the court to a secure children's home in the West Midlands.

He had to wait four hours for his case to be heard while social services there, who had been notified in advance, assembled the escort and assigned them transport.