The editor of the Manchester Evening News has called for people to speak out against young louts - and asked parents to face up to their responsibilities.

Paul Horrocks made the plea as part of an Evening News special investigation into young tearaways just days before controversial Government plans to fine parents of wayward children were revealed.

A front page story headlined "Out of Control" was backed up by two pages of evidence inside the paper during a week where young thugs had been making the headlines.

The paper had already focused on a 13-year-old from Manchester, who repeatedly threatened and tormented an 86-year-old woman and a ten-year-old banned from school for putting classmates in "grave danger".

Paul said: "These are the stories which grab the headlines.

"But behind them are acts of yobbery which plague communities up and down the country, day in, day out.

"The Prime Minister has pledged that he will bring the crimewave on our streets under control by September. We wish him luck.

"It also requires ordinary citizens to keep on speaking out against loutishness which will otherwise become the norm.

"But, most crucially, it requires the parents of those errant children to wake up to their own responsibilities."

The Evening News looked at the plight of families living with a "yob culture" and interviewed people who felt they were living under threat, as well as experts who conceded that children can be doomed to a life of crime from the age of four.

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