A troubled 15-year-old Carlisle boy whose recent life of crime has involved three burglaries, carrying a knife, and two "joyriding" offences has been locked up for ten months.

As the boy's father and grandmother looked on, magistrates sitting at the city's Rickergate court heard how the boy had repeatedly failed to comply with the terms of a court order that was imposed on an earlier occasion after he admitted the burglaries, including one in Hebden Avenue, Sandsfield Park, when he and accomplices stole goods worth £482.

The youngster was brought back to court for flouting his youth rehabilitation order.

He also admitted stealing clothing from a Carlisle store, possessing cannabis and having a lock knife in a public place.

Prosecutor Pam Ward said the theft happened on October 8 last year, when staff at the Footasylum store in Scotch Street, Carlisle, realised that clothing had been stolen from the store. CCTV images showed two youths had come into the shop and taken the goods before leaving without paying. Police recognised the 15-year-old.

When they searched his Carlisle home, they found the £42.99 outfit he stole in his room.

The lock-knife offence came to light on November 18 last year, when the teenager was arrested for an unrelated offence.

"Both boys [who were arrested] were searched and in the [defendant's] pocket officers found the lock-knife," said Mrs Ward.

The court then heard about the teenager's earlier offences, which triggered the youth rehabilitation order.

The first burglary was in April, 2017, when the boy and an accomplice went into the Hebden Avenue property and raided a storeroom, stealing tools, a radio, toys, and £100 in loose change.

Some of the goods were discarded on the property's lawn.

In December that year, the boy was part of a group who took two cars from the driveway of a house in Yewdale Road, Morton, the keys having been taken from a kitchen table in the house.

Both cars were later found crashed, and with significant damage.

The boy committed another taking without consent offence last February - again after the keys were stolen from inside the owner's home.

The car was later abandoned, and the teenager and a pal were seeing running away.

Anthony Wilson, for the boy, argued against a proposed Criminal Behaviour Order, saying it included a condition that the boy would not see several of his friends.

Among them was a teenager who was the defendant's best friend, said Mr Wilson. The lawyer asked magistrates to make the detention and training order that was likely to be imposed as short as possible.

The chairwoman of the bench told the teenager: "You have wilfully and persistently breached your [court] order; and the court has decided it has no other option but to impose a detention and training order." She told the boy he will actually serve a total of five months before he will be released back into the community.

The bench ruled against imposing a Criminal Behaviour Order.

As he was being led away, the boy told his weeping grandmother: "Sweet, gran: I'll be out in four months."