A YOUNG thug has been jailed following an attack which left a 17-year-old boy needing staples to a head wound.

He had then tried to cover his tracks by threatening to burn the victim’s house down if he went to the police.

The boy, aged 17, appeared before Southend Youth Court after pleading guilty to actual bofily harm and intimidating a witness.

Prosecutor Bob Rowlingson, speaking after the case, said it had all happened because a row about a girl.

He said the defendant had gone to a house in Rayleigh where he knew the defendant would be and punched him about five times through an open window.

A girl tried to pacify him and the victim came to the door.

He said: “The defendant punched him, knocking him back into the hallway. He’s staggered back into the house, inside the lounge, where the victim has then been punched again. As he fell to the floor he struck his head causing a three ins long gash which required seven staples.”

The victim was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to Southend Hospital to have seven staples to his head wound.

 

Mr Rowlingson said that two day’s later the victim’s pal received a call from the culprit.

He said: “It was during that call that the defendant said if he’s going to the police on the matter I’m going to burn his house down.

“He said make sure he knows, you’re a friend of his pass the message on, or words to that effect.”

Luckily, the victim had been clever enough to record the conversation.

The yob, who lives in Benfleet, was jailed foe six months as he already had a previous conviction for violence.

He was part of a gang who brutally attacked airman who had just returned from frontline service in Afghanistan, in July 2010.

The victim had just left the PInk Toothbrush nightclub before the unprovoked attack in Websters Way carpark, Rayleigh.

He was knocked unconscious, and left with a broken nose and a cut lip, which needed stitches.

The boy was found guilty of actual bodily harm and sentenced to ten months detention for the offence in July 2011.