RETAILERS and residents in the West End of Morecambe have met to try and find a way to deal with young tearaways. As they did one former shop worker from the area has talked of the misery suffered by himself, and fellow store assistants, as a result of constant abuse by a hard core of teenage hooligans. Steven Ogden used to work at a local convenience store in the area and says it was the same faces again and again who attacked him. "I remember one night we caught this lad shoplifting. We got hold of him and called the police. Of course they let him out again straight away and he came back and started kicking the doors in," he explained.

The police were then called again.

"This time he started shouting and throwing things but he managed to escape before police arrived. That lad still comes into the shop all the time."

Steven has a fund of similar tales. One girl, just nine-years-old, from a notorious local family even took on a local bobby. When the policeman told her off the small child laughed, came out with a torrent of abusive language and said: 'You can't touch us, you can't do anything to stop us.'

But it is the 'small' instances of abuse - routine for the police and which rarely warrant anything other than a cursory mention - that finally grind you down according to Steven. "There's one lady who worked at the chippy who just left in the end. She was defenceless and they just used to jump over the counter and cause havoc, trying to terrify her. The police call them the 'gang of nine.' It's frustrating for them as well because they know who they are but there 's only so much they can do."

A number of West End shopkeepers and residents met at the Imperial Hotel with councillors and police to try and thrash out some ideas on how to combat the hooliganism and continue the regeneration of the area. See next week's Citizen to find out what ideas they came up with.

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