A GANG of drunken youths stole a school bus and led police on a five-mile chase.

The out-of-control coach was only stopped after police threw stinger devices in its path and it crashed into a car of armed officers.

Three of the gang - one of whom was on an Anti-Social Behaviour Order - appeared at Newcastle Crown Court on Monday but escaped jail.

A fourth was sent to prison along with an accomplice for a separate incident in which they randomly attacked a young couple in Burradon, North Tyneside.

Robert Thompson, of Burradon Road, Burradon, Karl Amers, of The Spinney, Cramlington, and Louis Howe, from Allanville, Camperdown, all 19, and James Bennett, of Moor View, Camperdown, 20, had all previously admitted allowing themselves to be carried on the bus on October 6 last year.

As none of them owned up to driving, they could only be sentenced on the basis they were passengers.

Prosecutor Euan Duff said all had been drunk before they took the double decker bus at Burradon Road in Annitsford, at about 8pm.

Police spotted the out-of-control bus shortly afterwards in Seaton Delaval.

The force helicopter and a convoy of squad cars then followed it at speeds of no more than 20mph.

The bus drove through two stinger devices before crashing into an armed response vehicle, hitting a bollard and coming to a stop at the junction.

The four occupants fled, but were quickly rounded up by police officers.

Thompson, Amers, and Howe were each given 12-month community orders and told to do 250 hours' unpaid work. Howe was placed under an electronic tag to be curfewed from 7pm-6am and both he and Thompson were ordered to pay £250 court costs.

Judge John Evans said: "You are young men who over the last few years have consumed far too much alcohol. You consume alcohol thinking you are big enough and old enough to hold your drink. None of you are capable of doing so.

"Your immaturity shows through in the behaviour you have exhibited. It is clear your are something of a nuisance to the communities in which you live."

He added: "Because none of you had the guts to admit who was the driver I have to deal with you on the basis you were passengers, not that that makes your behaviour any more excusable."

Bennett and Scott Guymer, 19, of Garth 24, Killingworth, were sentenced separately because of a drunken attack they carried out February 17 this year on a young couple as they walked through a subway to catch a bus.

After asking the couple for chips they beat the boy to the ground, then Guymer molested his girlfriend before the two left the scene laughing, Mr Duff told the court.

Guymer was jailed for 18 months for sexual assault on the girl, 17, and 12 months for causing actual bodily harm on the 16-year-old, to run concurrently.

Bennett was jailed for 12 months for the attack and three months for his role in the bus incident, to run concurrently. Both had admitted the offences.