A TEENAGE tearaway who bragged he was a "gangster" has been named and shamed -- and banned from entering people's shops and houses for two years.

Magistrates ordered that Wesley Walmsley of Clement Street, Accrington, should be identified in the interests of the public after requests from the Lancashire Evening Telegraph and Hyndburn Council.

At a previous hearing for an interim order in February, magistrates decided against naming him.

The 16-year-old, is now banned from entering shops and houses in Hyndburn without permission from the owner as part of a two-year anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).

But a curfew and ban on entering parts of Accrington town centre, which formed part of the interim order, were dropped.

Walmsley had accrued more than 30 convictions since 1998 for burglary, public order offences, and one conviction for drug-related offences. He has already been on a police detention tag scheme and many curfew conditions.

But nothing curbed his behaviour so Hyndburn Council brought the action for the ASBO.

Graeme Parkinson, defending, said Walmsley shouldn't be named because his behaviour had improved since the interim order was imposed.

But Robert Gibson, chairman of the bench, said: "We now feel it's in the public interest that he should be named."

Police and the council welcomed the move.

Sergeant Claire Holbrook, Accrington Police co-ordinator, told the court last month that when asked by a police officer why he was not in school he had replied "because I'm a gangster."

Today she said: "He has caused a lot of distress for many residents in Hyndburn.

"We will not hesitate to use any legislation that's lawfully at our disposal in order to ensure that the residents of Hyndburn are protected from any such behaviour in the future."

Council leader Ian Ormerod said: "He has no-one else to blame but himself. He will have had plenty of warnings and probably last chances, so he now has to walk around his neighbourhood with people knowing he is a culprit.

"It worries me that our society is reaching this stage, but the protection of the general public must be paramount.

"Hyndburn Council will press for ASBOs when other means have failed -- people can be reassured with that."