IF the recurrent reports in this newspaper are any guide, a major bane of so many people's lives in East Lancashire are young yobs kicking up a nuisance in the streets and public places.

What they are, of course, short of is the deserved clout round the earhole that louts used to get from their teachers or local bobby if they stepped out of line.

But is not one of the reasons for this widespread plague the fact that these young hooligans know they are as untouchable in the community as they are nowadays in our no-cane schools?

Look, for instance, at the pathetic approach police are now adopting in response to night-time juvenile nuisance in Colne -- that of special constables going around with a borrowed video camera openly filming any youths engaged in anti-social behaviour.

I'd have thought the bobbies would be doing more to deter this sort of nuisance if, instead of zooming in on these yobs with a camera, they zoomed in physically, grabbed their collars and charged them with breaking the law - every time.

I fail to see what good it will do, presenting the parents of these wayward Waynes and Jasons with footage of their children's anti-social antics if, to start with, the parents are so irresponsible as to let them roam about among night-time gangs.

Besides which, in a topsy-turvy world where more concern seems to be shown to offenders than their victims, I would not mind betting that this 'You've been framed' scheme to shame yobs is soon outlawed on the grounds that it breaches the human rights of our young hooligans.