Judge warns teen to stay out of trouble

Deputy District Judge Neil Rafferty gave the warning to 18-year-old Callum Walker.

Walker, of Virginia Court, pleaded guilty to disorderly behaviour and assaulting police on April 12, last year.

The teen also admitted a further charge of handling a stolen hard drive on May 18.

Derry Magistrate’s Court heard police were in the Prehen area to conduct enquiries in a missing person investigation.

They approached a property and saw two males running away from it.

They detained one of the males and the other man. who was later identified as Walker, threw a piece of paper at a police officer.

The court was told this hit the officer on the face and was found to be a rolled up piece of cigarette paper.

As he was being searched the 18-year-old called an officer a ‘ginger p****’.

Defence counsel Sean Doherty told the court his client is in breach of a suspended sentence and knows he has ‘put his liberty very much at stake’.

He said the teen has stayed out of trouble since May and is ‘sincere in his excitement about the upcoming birth of his first child’.

Passing sentence, Deputy District Judge Rafferty said he had seen ‘many young men get all excited because they are having their first child with a woman they love.

‘I have seen these young men not be there for the birth, seen someone else raise their child and get no access’.

He told Walker ‘you can choose to lose your temper with police officers, to behave badly and to handle stolen goods. If you do I will not hesitate to send you to prison’.

Walker received an eight month sentence suspended for two years and was fined £100.