Teen thug jailed after subjecting estate residents to years of terror

Brendan Montague
Thursday December 27
The Stockport Express

THUG Daniel Mather celebrated his Boxing Day birthday behind bars yesterday for breaking a bad behaviour order banning him from the estate he bullied for years.

Mather, 18, of Appleby Close, Bridgehall, first breached the order as soon as he left the court by abusing people outside, Stockport Magistrates heard last Wednesday.

Powers given to civil courts to stop criminals like Mather
making people's lives a misery did nothing to prevent a litany of offences by him on the Offerton Estate.

Magistrates jailed Mather, pictured left, for 12 months last Wednesday after he admitted burglary, theft, breaking bail, driving while disqualified and four breaches of an "extensive" Anti-Social Behaviour Order, (ASBO) placed on him in September.

The ASBO banned Mather ,from entering parts of the Offerton Estate for four years, alongside gang members Dale Fitzpatric and Matthew Hincheliffe, after they terrorised residents and shop keepers.

The three were banned from meeting named criminals, travelling in private cars or on motorbikes and entering people's houses. Mather broke all these parts of the order. The magistrates lifted reporting restrictions
protecting young people from the public eye on Wednesday after a request by the Stockport Express.

Prosecuting, David Harley told the court Mather broke into
Stockport College and stole computers worth £1,097 on September 14, five days before the ASBO was imposed.
Defending, Mrs Gibbon told magistrates that Mather burgled the college after he left custody to survive on the streets.

Abuse

But she admitted that within an hour and a half of the
behaviour order being made on September 19, Mather broke it by throwing abuse at people involved with the case as he left the court.

Mather was arrested days later but broke bail and failed to
appear in court on October 24.

The defendant breached the behaviour order again by tearing
around Offerton Estate on a stolen motorbike, Mr Hartley told the court: "He said he was not the original thief but he was satisfied that it was stolen and he was simply riding around," he added.

The defendant again breached the order by meeting his old
accomplices on November 5 and 12 in Offerton.
He was finally arrested at his mother's home on November 23, and held in custody until the trial.

Mrs Gibbon told the court each breach was just a minor offence committed by a "relatively immature and childlike" boy, and pleaded with the magistrates not to make an example of Mather.

The magistrates sentenced Mather to four months in custody and training for each ASBO breach, three to run end-to-end. Further sentences of four months each for burglary and theft were passed to run concurrently.

In total Mather was sentenced and banned from driving for 12 months. Chairman of the bench Jean Dooley said: "These offences are so serious that only a custodial sentence seems appropriate.

"You are a persistent offender and not deterred by other
sentences.”