ARSON ATTACK

Two yobs hoped to put a teacher's life in danger when they tried to firebomb his house. The teacher, who works at the Derby school where they were pupils, was at home with his wife and three children when an bottle filled with petrol smashed against the house. The two youths accused of the attempted arson attack cannot be named for legal reasons and the school and the teacher also cannot be identified to protect the teenagers' identities. Why are we hell-bent on protecting perpetrators of crimes? They later walked free from court due to police incompetence.

Judge Alison Hampton stopped the trial at Derby Crown Court after deciding DC Bob Youngson had broken the rules in dealing with two witnesses. She said the teacher had been let down and deserved to feel "aggrieved". The witnesses, friends of the defendants, both told the jury they had seen the older boy siphon petrol into the bottle from a motorbike in his garden. He then carried the petrol bomb in his tracksuit bottoms as they walked to the Co-op shop in Nottingham Road. The two boys said that, after they bought sweets, they spotted the older boy running from a jitty leading from Ravenscroft Drive.

They also said that the younger boy, who had been excluded from school for threatening the teacher, did not leave the vicinity of the shop. But the court heard that this contradicted their statements to DC Youngson in June, which said the younger boy had also come running from the jitty. During cross-examination, they also revealed that the officer had taken one of their statements while the other was in the same room. He also visited one of the boys to say he could change his evidence as CCTV showed the younger defendant in the shop, it was claimed. Judge Hampton told the jury, before asking them to return not guilty verdicts, "I have reached what is a fairly unpalatable conclusion that I cannot allow this trial to continue. Some of the rules have apparently been broken in this case."

She said the 16-year-old's behaviour towards his teacher was "shameful" and she hoped the other boy's parents would be concerned about the manufacture of a petrol bomb in their backyard. She said, "If it's repeated, they can expect to come back to court. They may not be so fortunate next time to have an officer whose conduct of the investigation was, at least, incompetent." Judge Hampton said of the teacher and his family, "If they are aggrieved that are perfectly entitled to be so. They have not received the protection they deserved." Inspector Nick Jones said the Derbyshire force would discuss the judge's comments with the Crown Prosecution Service.