A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD boy has become the third member of his shamed family to be given an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo).

Daniel Wright joins mother Emma Louise Wright and her partner, Simon Michael McPhee, of Darlington, in receiving the court order.

Since summer 2006, Darlington Borough Council has compiled a dossier of complaints about the family.

At a hearing in August, the council’s solicitor, John Constable, branded them “the family from hell”.

Emma Louise Wright, 28, and McPhee, 22, of Louisa Street, in the Bank Top area of town, were each given a fiveyear Asbo in August after the court heard the family had subjected residents to two years of intimidation, bullying and vandalism.

Since moving into the street, they had created what was described as “madness”, with alcohol-fuelled loutish and, sometimes racist, behaviour that had driven neighbours to despair.

The authority’s investigation concluded this week when Darlington magistrates imposed a two-year Asbo on Daniel Wright.

The court was told that residents complained the 12- year-old roamed the streets, causing trouble and inciting others to join in.

In May, he was arrested for throwing stones at a Sikh temple, in Lawrence Street, and in the same month one resident complained he had thrown eight bags of dog faeces into his property.

Other instances of antisocial behaviour included throwing stones at CCTV cameras, spitting at a neighbour’s car and threatening pupils at school.

Wright must also attend weekly meetings for six months to ensure he is complying with the Asbo.

In handing out the Asbo, chairwoman of the magistrates Christine Selby told him: “We feel you have caused harassment, alarm and distress to the community in which you live and we feel that an anti-social behaviour order is necessary to protect the public from your behaviour.

Two years is the minimum length, and we decided on that because you are only 12, and your behaviour has improved a bit.”

For the duration of his Asbo, Wright must not cause any harassment to others, use foul language, assault, threaten or intimidate anyone, enter an exclusion zone covering Dickinson Street and Lawrence Street or throw missiles of any description.

■ Following an application by Darlington Borough Council, the usual reporting restrictions imposed on cases involving minors were lifted because it was deemed to be of sufficient public interest.