A NEIGHBOURHOOD menace has been banned from a York street for the second time and ordered to live on the other side of the city.

Thomas Mark Ruane, 18, was also jailed for his latest crimes in Etty Avenue, Tang Hall, as magistrates imposed on him what is thought to be the city's first criminal antisocial behaviour order (CRASBO).

York Crown Court heard a psychiatrist has diagnosed Ruane as having a reckless disregard for the safety of others or himself, exacerbated by drugs.

In February 2000, when he was 14, York magistrates banned him from entering Etty Avenue when they gave him a two-year civil antisocial behaviour order (ASBO) after a catalogue of incidents in the troubled street.

The court heard that for two years he stayed out of trouble, but then he returned to crime.

Now the courts have made a second attempt to protect the public from him, this time by giving him a CRASBO. It bans him from entering Etty Avenue between 8pm and 7am unless with his mother, forces him to live in Danebury Drive, Acomb, stops him being violent in public or encouraging others to be violent, and bans him from meeting two named people in public.

"Your present behaviour and your past behaviour are simply too bad to ignore," the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman.

Ruane had taken a man's car and damaged it, and threatened the car owner with a weapon.

Ruane pleaded guilty to aggravated taking of a vehicle, drink-driving, driving without a licence and without insurance, unlawful violence with a ball in a sock and skipping bail in November. In addition to the 20-month jail sentence, he was banned from driving for three years and ordered to retake his driving test.

His barrister, Diane Nixon, said he failed to attend court in November because he didn't want to be in jail over Christmas. He had a drink problem but was showing signs of improvement. Someone else had taken the car keys during a party, but he had then used them.

Updated: 09:33 Saturday, April 24, 2004