Asbo offenders 'named and shamed'

The council hopes the action will act as a deterrent

Young people who are given anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) in Darlington are being warned they will be 'named and shamed' by a council.

Darlington Borough Council has already launched its campaign by distributing leaflets with details of a 14-year-old to residents on the Skerne Park Estate.

The council says its campaign is totally justified.

But human rights groups warn the move could lead to vigilante action and will make the situation worse.

Council leader John Williams said he believes it will mean communities will help enforce the conditions of the Asbos and will act as a deterrent to others.

He said: "I feel really strongly that these people should be named and shamed, they should be outed.

'Encouraging vigilantism'

"People should know about the outrageous behaviour that they get up to that makes other people's lives an absolute misery.

"And anything that we can do as a council in partnership with the police and others to bring people like this to account I am quite determined that we are going to do."

He said it would only involve "very persistent, hard-core offenders" and dismissed claims it would infringe the offenders' civil liberties, saying the offenders were the ones contravening civil liberties.

But Barry Hugill from civil rights group Liberty said: "It's not about the civil liberties of persistent offenders, it's about the fear that once you start naming and shaming people, once you start putting leaflets out, what you are doing is you are encouraging vigilantism."

He said Liberty was in favour of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour but feared it would be the families of those who were named and shamed who would be attacked.