What happened to Britain’s notorious ASBO kids? From baby-faced burglar ‘Ratboy’ to the infamous ‘Asbros’ who terrorised their estate aged 11 and 12
- Read more: The feral brothers who prove Asbos always were a waste of time
It was the bold Labour plan to crack down on youth disorder, but 25 years on, ASBOs appear to have done very little to scare youngsters away from a life of crime.
The ASBO, or anti-social behavioural order, was launched in 1998 by then Home Secretary David Blunkett – the four-letter abbreviation quickly obsessed the nation.
It became shorthand for anything related to disruptive behaviour and spawned a mini-industry selling t-shirts, hoodies and even baby clothes emblazoned with ASBO-inspired slogans.
Mugshots of children as young as 10 were plastered across newspapers in the hopes that a public shaming might teach them a lesson, and provide some sense of justice for the neighbourhoods they terrorised.
But instead of acting as a deterrent, the ASBO, for many, became a badge of honour, and more than half of those who received one (55%), would breach its conditions.
They were eventually scrapped in 2014 and replaced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by civil injunctions and criminal behaviour orders (CBOs).
But what ever happened to the baby-faced troublemakers?
The ‘Asbros’: Daniel and Ricky Oakley
Daniel Oakley racked up 40 arrests with his brother Ricky before they became known as the ‘demons from hell’ in their neighbourhood of Park Village in Wolverhampton.
The siblings became the youngest recipients of anti-social behaviour orders in 2006, prompting them to become known as ‘Asbros’.
Their reign of terror included throwing knives, starting fires and letting down tyres, before they began carrying out robberies and burglaries.
On one occasion, the duo suffered severe burns after Ricky threw a can of foam on a fire and it exploded.
Speaking to MailOnline this week, Danny recalled: ‘That was just the start of it. There was a big explosion that’s for sure, we were walking down our road with smouldering hair and no eyebrows… I’ve come a long way from where I was.’
Danny and Ricky Oakley ran riot around their neighbourhood in Park Village, Wolverhampton. When they were 11 and 12, they were badly burned after a can of foam chucked on a bonfire exploded
The 21-year-old – whose brother Ricky is currently in prison – is vowing to start afresh and said he wants to help steer other youngsters away from gangs. He is pictured with his brother in a documentary aired last year
Danny has been out of prison and off the authorities’ radar since 2014, although he was in the dock after being accused of assaulting a police officer last year.
The now 29-year-old said he fell in the street was being treated for a head injury when he was forcibly strapped to an ambulance bed, forcing him to lash out due to his fears of being sent to hospital. He avoided jail and was discharged by a judge.
Danny now lives in his own place in Wolverhampton and is ‘free from court orders and probation’.
‘I got my licence this year and that has helped me a lot,’ he added, ‘I’ve got my own car now too.’
Danny, who now suffers from emotionally unstable personality disorder, believes ASBOs had no impact on the children who were handed them, and in his case only made things worse.
Danny (pictured in 2019) now lives in his own place in Wolverhampton and is ‘free from court orders and probation’
‘My personality disorder came from my ASBO,’ he added, ‘I became ”famous” and was forced to live in my own bubble.
‘I was isolated from other kids, I couldn’t go to school because so many wanted to fight me to prove a point, it became the main theme of my childhood.’
And it was prison, not ASBOs, which made him open his eyes.
‘Prison really changed everything,’ he said, ‘My freedom had been taken away and that really taught me a lesson.’
Danny, who is gay, is well known in his area after several appearances in the media over the years, and has amassed a following online, particularly among young LGBT people growing up in similar circumstances to him.
He added: ‘I have some supporters who send me clothes, gifts and sometimes money which is amazing.
‘I also have young gay people from council estates reaching out for advice and others who want to leave crime behind, and I love to try and help them steer a new path.’
Danny Oakley, who became known as the ‘demons from hell’ along with his brother after becoming the youngest ASBO recipients, said he turned to a life a crime to hide his homosexuality
Danny previously revealed how he turned to loutish behaviour because he was hiding his homosexuality.
In 2015 – his brother Ricky was in prison – while he vowed to start afresh and said he planned to help steer other youngsters away from street gangs.
Speaking to Jennifer Tippett and Kim Willis, he told The Sun: ‘I knew I was gay but didn’t want to be. I was a criminal and didn’t want to be.
‘Dad would have hated me if he knew, so at 14 I tried to kill myself because the secret was torture. When you’re a thug on a council estate, being gay isn’t an option. I was living a lie.’
Danny said his uncle caught him with another boy when he was 16. His uncle then told his father, who branded him a ‘poof’ and a ‘queer’. After that, he claims he attempted to hide his true feelings by running riot around the area.
Danny recalled how life on the council estate where the boys grew up was hard and, without parental guidance, they revelled in their notoriety as a trouble maker.
He said the boys often misbehaved so they would be given some attention from their father, who they say otherwise ignored them.
But, after leaving home at 15, Danny began to turn his life around. He went on to study at Walsall College, where he did a level-1 GNVQ in business studies, disassociating himself from gangs and making new friends who he said accepted him for who he was.
Danny told MailOnline this week that his brother is out of prison and ‘doing his own thing’, adding that they rarely speak.
‘Classic psychopath’: Joseph McCann
The five McCann brothers helped turn Greater Manchester into the ASBO capital of Britain thanks to their ‘terrorising’ antics, spearheaded by ‘psychopath’ Joseph McCann.
The siblings were said to leave neighbours cowering in their wake, but a handful kept files of evidence on the boys while council bosses set up a video camera after receiving so many complaints.
They were caught on CCTV wrecking cars, throwing bricks at workers and vandalising property, leading Manchester City Council to evict the whole family on the grounds of breach of tenancy.
When the boys were finally banned from the estate the following year, takings at the local shops increased by £14,000 a week. Sean McCann is pictured (centre) in Manchester in 1999
Joseph McCann was jailed for carrying out a horrific campaign of kidnappings, rapes and sex attacks
Despite being shipped two miles away to Ardwick, the brothers continued to return to Beswick just to raise hell, leading to Joseph receiving an ASBO aged 14 in 1999, alongside brothers Sean, 16 and Michael, 13.
A year after the ASBOs were issued, burglaries in Beswick had halved and takings in its shopping precinct were up. But for Joseph, at least, the orders had no impact on his criminal desires.
In 2008, he was jailed for nine years for aggravated burglary after forcing his way into an 85-year-old man’s home in Bedford and threatening him with a knife.
He failed to be rehabilitated and after his release he was arrested again for burglary in August 2017 and given a three-and-a-half year jail term.
But after 18 months behind bars, he was released early by the authorities in error, allowing him to embark on a 15-day rampage of rape, violence and abduction.
A judge described him as a ‘classic psychopath’ as he dealt him 33 life sentences in 2019 after he targeted 11 victims aged 11 to 71 in Greater Manchester, Ramsbottom and London.
The brothers emerged from court defiant in 1999. Staring down the cameras, McCann (right) and his brothers, Sean, then 16 and Michael (left), 12, were pictured swearing and grinning
He had been charged with a total of 37 offences relating to 11 victims, ranging in ages from 11 to 71.
A mother, who was tied up while he raped her son, 11, and her daughter, 17, in their home, said: ‘If the probation service had done its job, these tragedies would never have occurred. My family was torn apart by what that man did and it could all have been prevented.’
A report by watchdogs revealed staff admitted being ‘scared’ of McCann and said he was ‘very intimidating’ as well as ‘menacing and manipulative’.
The document added: ‘It is evident that offender managers were threatened, blamed and lied to by [McCann].’
Other shocking revelations included how McCann wrote to relatives asking them to find him a ‘clean young girl’ on his release. Yet he was not identified as a potential sex offender and prison officers did not share details of his letter.
‘Ratboy’ Anthony Kennedy
Anthony Kennedy, aka Ratboy, received his first caution at the age of 10 for terrorising the Byker Wall estate in Newcastle in the 1990s.
Between the ages of 11 and 13, he was arrested 16 times and appeared in court three times for offences including burglary, theft, taking a car without consent and other driving offences.
He earned the nickname Ratboy after being found by police hiding in a ventilation shaft.
At 14, he admitted burglary and head butting a policeman in the face during a campaign of terror against elderly women.
Sticking to his modus operandi, he was jailed at 17 for four years for robbing a pensioner, and was moved to an adult prison a year later to serve out the rest of his sentence.
Kennedy (pictured in 1997) was back at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday after admitting breaking into a house in North Tyneside
During his latest burglary in 2018, the bumbling villain cut himself as he smashed a window and left a trail of blood as he scoured the house
He was sentenced a further three times for burglary at the ages of 20, 24 and 26.
His last victim, a security consultant, left his locked and alarmed home on Kensington Gardens, Monkseaton, around 3pm on September 21, 2018.
Kennedy entered by smashing a century old glass panel in the front door.
But the bumbling villain cut himself in the process and left a trail of blood as he scoured the house.
Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said the victim returned the following day to find his home ransacked.
Sentimental items had been stolen including watches worth £750 – one of which was 35 years old and of significant sentimental value.
Judge Robert Spragg jailed Kennedy, of Michaelgate, Byker, Newcastle, for three years and four months, adding he was ‘turning into a career burglar’.
As a child, Kennedy confounded police as he targeted the homes of the elderly, escaping into the heating ducts and stairwells of Byker Wall – the estate in Newcastle’s East End where he grew up.
Kennedy (pictured outside court aged 14 in 1993) was snared after he was caught on CCTV and police ran DNA tests on the blood left splattered across the house
In 2007, Kennedy (pictured in 2007) claimed to have given up a life of crime after finding love and religion. He and his partner moved to Blyth, Northumberland, to have a fresh start
Jeff Taylor, defending at his 2018 trial, said: ‘He had notoriety as a child. There was a period of time when he was very much having difficulties in his life and was excluded from school at 11.
‘A significant number of offences occurred in the Byker Wall area. At that point the design of the structure was considered to be relatively easy to enter with a small person being passed through the window by others. It has extended into his adult life.
‘He struggles with his ability to deal with drugs. He solves problems by resorting back to criminal offending.
‘He is apologetic, he has insight into the effect of his actions but his thinking skills are deficient and he has learning difficulties.’
In 2007, Kennedy claimed to have given up a life of crime after finding love and religion. He and his partner moved to Blyth, Northumberland, to have a fresh start.
He said at the time: ‘I believe it’s important to treat others how you would like to be treated yourself and to have respect for other people.
‘When I was Ratboy, those were things I didn’t care about. Ratboy is the person I used to be.
He added: ‘The only names I want to be called now are Anthony and Dad. I’ve turned my back on crime and would never go back to that life. I’ve got too much to lose.’
Alfie Hodgin
At just 10 years old, Alfie Hodgin was one of the youngest people ever to receive an anti-social behaviour order – but it appears it did little to change his behaviour.
In October last year he was jailed after he tried to become a drug gang boss but was stabbed 27 times with a machete in a revenge attack.
The 18-year-old was locked up after he was caught with £2,320 of heroin and crack cocaine while ‘slumped on the floor covered in blood’ in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.
The teenager from Liscard, Merseyside, was working for an organised crime group in a bid to pay off debt he had accumulated but he instead stole the gang’s phone and drugs as he attempted to run his own operation.
Alfie Hodgin, pictured aged ten in 2014 (left), was one of the youngest people to receive an ASBO. He has now been jailed aged 18 (right) after being caught with more than £2,000 of heroin and crack cocaine while ‘slumped on the floor covered in blood’ following a revenge attack.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how a gang of four machete-wielding men left Hodgin lying in a pool of his own blood on July 14 with 27 stab wounds.
Reports at the time heard that dozens of police cars responding to the incident which saw the attackers jump out at Hodgin out of a grey SUV.
He spent two weeks in hospital due to the severity of his injuries having been rescued by an air ambulance. Prosecutor Derek Jones told the court Hodgin had ‘clearly been subjected to a serious assault with weapons, thought to be machetes’.
But he would be arrested by officers who found him in the possession of £1,220 of heroin, £1,100 of crack cocaine and a £1,208 ‘graft’ phone.
Hodgin admitted possession of heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply and being concerned in the supply of the drugs as he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years.
Kyle and Calvin Hooper
Kyle and Calvin Hooper were aged just 12 and 10 respectively when they were handed ASBOs for terrorising their Newport neighbourhood.
The order was imposed for five years after they threw bricks at moving buses, launched bottles and eggs and local residents and workers and shot at people with an air pistol.
Kyle once swung a metal bar at a woman after she challenged a group of youths who were causing a disturbance, a court heard.
The siblings were involved in 44 incidents over a 14-month period before being handed their first ASBOs in January 2005.
Kyle (right) and Calvin Hooper were aged just 12 and 10 respectively when they were handed ASBOs for terrorising their Newport neighbourhood
Kyle (pictured) once swung a metal bar at a woman after she challenged a group of youths who were causing a disturbance, a court heard
They would find themselves in front of the court again, however, when they each received a two-year ASBO in March 2014.
They were banned from meeting up with certain friends who they had caused trouble with and could not gather in a group of more than three people.
The brothers were also banned from entering certain areas.
Almost a decade later, and Kyle, at least, appears to have stayed out of trouble after having a son.
He regularly posts pictures with friends on social media and helps run a local football club.
MailOnline has reached out to Kyle for comment.
In 2019, a Calvin Hooper was convicted of being in possession of cannabis with intent to supply. [CHECK]
He was jailed in 2020 for breaching the terms of his community order.
Craig Fletcher
Craig Fletcher is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum term of of 25 years after carrying out the brutal murder of a father on Boxing Day in 2018.
At 15, he was the first in Redcar and Cleveland to be slapped with an ASBO for tormenting locals in South Bank in 2001 – before receiving his second order just three years later.
In May 2004, the same year as his second ASBO, he was jailed for three years after asking a ‘naive and vulnerable’ deaf man to give him lift early one morning – before violently robbing him of his car, which was later found burned out.
Undeterred and clearly not rehabilitated, Fletcher grinned in the dock in 2018 when the then-21-year-old was jailed for two years and nine months for a horrifying assault on a 16-year-old boy.
Craig Fletcher arriving a Teesside Magistrate’s Court to receive his ASBO aged 15
Craig Fletcher, 33 (pictured), of Eston, was handed a life sentence, with a 25 years minimum term for his part in the murder. He filmed the attack on his mobile phone. The footage was shown to Teeside Crown Court – but it was so graphic, the public gallery was cleared as it was played
Fletcher and two other men aged 18 and 19 kicked and punched the boy to within an inch of his life before dragging him into a field – robbing him of just £9 and a mobile phone.
The year before he became a murderer, Fletcher vowed his criminal career was a thing of the past, telling Teesside Live he wanted to focus on his young family.
‘I got my ASBO because, basically, I was a little nuisance,’ Fletcher said.
‘I was going around smashing windows and drinking in the streets, I was out of control. I’m getting texts off people who I used to have problems with saying ”let’s bury the hatchet”.
‘I’ve changed my ways, and everyone deserves a chance at turning over a new leaf.’
A year later, Fletcher and his accomplice Craig Barstow faced Teesside Crown Court for the killing of Gavin Barnes, 35, which they filmed in Fletcher’s Eston High Street flat.
Both men had previously admitted the murder. Barstow, 31, of South Bank, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 26-and-a-half years.
Prosecutor Peter Makepeace QC told the court Mr Barnes died from a severe blunt force head injury with multiple impacts to the head causing skull and facial fractures, brain damage and severe swelling.
A postmortem carried out on Mr Barnes found 105 injuries were inflicted on his body including bone fractures and broken ribs, The Mirror reported.
Mr Makepeace described how the victim, who had issues with alcohol and relapsed on Christmas Day, was sleeping rough in Eston Square after a falling out with his girlfriend and had been drinking with Fletcher and Barstow.
But at some point, the court heard, Barstow took drunken exception to Mr Barnes for no good reason – and launched into a sustained, torturous attack.
Footage of the murder taken from Fletcher’s own mobile phone was shown to the court – but it was so graphic, the public gallery was cleared as it was played.
In the footage shown in court, both murderers were ‘laughing throughout’ the attack. After further degrading and sadistic attacks, Fletcher said: ‘I video-recorded a murder. Finish him off then’ (Pictured: forensics at the scene of the brutal 2018 attack)
Simon Bourne Arton QC said told the men in court: ‘Gavin Barnes was 35 when he died. He was 35 when you killed him… No sentence I impose upon you can begin to compensate his family and his friends. Nothing I do or say can help them in their grief.’ (Pictured: Gavin Barnes)
It showed the victim lying on the kitchen floor in a dishevelled state and then, two hours later at around 6.30pm, it again showed Mr Barnes had ‘received a very severe beating and is utterly helpless’.
The footage showed Barstow dragging Mr Barnes along a corridor, Fletcher was filming and commentating throughout, sometimes taking part in the violence.
Mr Barnes was in distress and unable to speak or make coherent noise except ‘guttural expressions of pain’.
Both murderers were ‘laughing throughout’ the attack, they slapped him and Barstow kicked him with steel toe-capped rigger boots.
Fletcher could be heard saying: ‘He’s hanging on for a long time this kid isn’t he.’
The footage then shows Barstow dragging Mr Barnes from the flat by his underwear shouting ‘Google me’.
He slammed the door on Mr Barnes’ lifeless body and looked up at the camera smiling.
Both were laughing, Barstow saying: ‘I told him not to wind me up he started it.’ Fletcher filmed blood on himself and said: ‘Looks like a murder scene.’
At one point, a dog bowl was placed in front of the helpless victim. After further degrading and sadistic attacks, Fletcher said: ‘I video-recorded a murder. Finish him off then.’
Barstow replied: ‘He’s dead.’ The violence lasted more than three hours.
Robert White
Robert White, who was one of the youngest people to be given an ASBO, was jailed for a violent machete raid after growing up to be a serial criminal.
White made headlines in 1999 when he was stripped of his right to anonymity after continually breaching the ASBO which he was handed at the age of 12.
Within three years of being handed the order, he racked up a further 160 alleged offences and went on to be jailed when he was just 15.
Robert White, now 29,who was the youngest person to be given an ASBO, has been jailed for a violent machete raid after growing up to be a serial criminal
White then graduated into adult crime and was jailed in 2008 for threatening a shopkeeper with a machete – in total he has been in court 33 times over 75 separate charges.
In 2016 he was jailed for more than six years after he and three fellow thugs stormed a house armed with an axe and a machete, beat up residents and stole a car while he was on bail for another offence.
Jailing him at Bristol Crown Court, Judge James Patrick told White it was an extremely serious offence and the victims were confronted by a group of ‘mob handed’ offenders.
He said: ‘This offence involved significant planning and it was a prolonged incident. The complainant lost two teeth, which is, in my judgement, serious harm.’
White became the youngest offender to be given an ASBO, just one year after they were introduced in 1999.
Three years later, at the age of 15, he appeared in court again, having made a mockery of the order by throwing fireworks at cars, shining a laser beam at a bus driver and spitting at filmgoers.
White (pictured at age 15 leaving Weston Super Mare magistrates’ Court) made headlines in 1999 when he was stripped of his right to anonymity after continually breaching the ASBO which he was handed at the age of 12
Three years later, at the age of 15, White appeared in court again, having made a mockery of the order by throwing fireworks at cars, shining a laser beam at a bus driver and spitting at filmgoers. He is pictured outside court in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right)
Robert White was just 12 years old when he was handed an Asbo in 2000
In a bid to deter him from further offences, a judge removed his anonymity but decided not to send him to jail.
But, just a few months later, White was sentenced to one year at a young offenders’ institution after admitting six offences including burglary and car theft.
They were his 16th convictions and the latest in a catalogue of more than 160 alleged offences committed in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
At the time, White’s solicitor, David Bird, blamed his reoffending on the notoriety he had gained.
After his release, White’s crime spree continued. Six years later, when he was aged 21, the tearaway was jailed for more than four years after threatening a shopkeeper with a machete.
Declan Madigan
He was labelled a ‘one-boy crime wave’ back in 2000 after being arrested 100 times for violent crime, burglary and car theft when he was just a teenager.
But Declan Madigan, who was 14 when he was handed an ASBO, seems to have finally got his life in order following a stint in prison.
He was jailed for 11 years in 2014 after being convicted of a drive-by shooting and drug offences in Nottingham.
He had been paralysed from the waist-down in an earlier car crash but ordered two others to fire shots at an empty house, the court heard.
Declan Madigan (pictured outside court aged 16), who was 14 when he was handed an ASBO, seems to have finally got his life in order following a stint in prison
Madigan’s barrister Lisa Hardy told Nottingham Crown Court: ‘He doesn’t want his children to have the life he has had.’ (Pictured: Madigan in a recent selfie)
The career criminal vowed to change his ways when he was released early in 2018, telling a judge he was ‘desperate to stay out of prison’ so that he could settle down and raise a family.
His barrister Lisa Hardy told Nottingham Crown Court: ‘He doesn’t want his children to have the life he has had.’
Madigan – a man with 26 convictions for 149 offences – was ‘frightened to death, it is fair to say, of being sent back to prison for any reason at all’, added Mrs Hardy.
Madigan has stayed true to his word and has remained out of prison, sharing a smiling selfie on Facebook as recently as this week.
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