By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 12:06, Monday, 20 February 2012

A Workington thug who boasted about his love of violence has been warned he could spend most of his life in prison.

Dean Winder, 20, told a probation officer that he would not stop his violent behaviour just because he was due in court charged with affray.

He boasted that he “explicitly supports the use of violence” and would get involved in it in the future, Carlisle Crown Court heard

And he showed no remorse for deliberately going out looking for trouble and being involved in an incident in which more than a dozen men chased a gang of younger teenagers down a street in West Cumbria, injuring two of them.

The judge, Recorder John Murray, told him that with such an attitude he was “not far short” of being classed as a “dangerous offender “ – a designation that could one day earn him an indefinite prison sentence.

Mr Murray told him: “I am very concerned about the things you said to the probation officer.

“If you continue to express such views all that is going to happen to you is that you will sentence yourself to life imprisonment by instalments.

“Either that or you will do something so serious that the courts will have no alternative but to lock you up for a period without end.”

Winder, of Newlands Gardens, Workington, pleaded guilty to a charge of affray and was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for a year.

He was also ordered to do 100 hours unpaid community work and put under a curfew to keep him indoors at home every night for the next three months.

His friend Sean Slack, who has just turned 18 and also lives in Newlands Gardens, was given four months in a young offenders institution, suspended for a year, after pleading guilty to causing actual bodily harm to a 17-year-old he punched in the face, knocking out two of his teeth.

He too was ordered to do 100 hours unpaid community work and put under a night-time curfew for the next three months.

A 17-year-old, who can’t be named because of his age, was made subject to a 12-month youth rehabilitation order and put under a night-time curfew for three months.

Prosecutor Dick Binstead told the court the charges arose from an incident in which a group of men, including all three defendants, chased the younger boys, pelting them with rocks and stones, in Lorton Avenue, Workington, on the evening of June 17 last year.

The judge described the incident as “ugly, unpleasant and outrageous.”

First published at 11:26, Monday, 20 February 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk