Yob jailed after he robbed students

3:15pm Friday 4th July 2008

A TEENAGE yob told he had "let his community down", bragged about his criminal exploits on the internet.

Craig Harfield, 18, was jailed on Wednesday after robbing two foreign exchange students.

He had claimed on a social networking site: "I'm a hustler".

Harfield stole a rucksack from a French schoolboy days before trying to rob an Italian lad last June.

Brazen Harfield of Willowherb Close, Woodhall Park, posted pictures of himself posing with what appear to be guns and drugs on his Bebo internet page.

Under photos apparently showing him smoking cannabis, Harfield wrote comments describing himself "smoking a j", slang for a marijuana cigarette, and "pretty high."

In one of the pictures on his page, Harfield brandishes a gun. In the corner of the room there appears to be a shotgun.

A friend has commented on the picture: "The terror has begun. The Iraki (sic) has armed himself with a high powered rifle."

Another picture shows what looks like a cannabis plant growing on a window sill. Harfield has labelled it "my plant".

Harfield was jailed for four months this week after failing to keep to the community order imposed by Judge Douglas Field in May. The judge ordered Harfield to complete 100 hours of community service and also imposed a one-year probation order.

In court he told him: "You indulged in yobbish behaviour and ought to be ashamed of yourself.

"I am sure these young foreign students who were over here to experience the culture of Britain and learn the language, would be very disappointed to find their counterparts over here behave in the way you did.

"You have let the whole of the community down."

After breaching the order three times, Harfield was given a curfew and electronic tag in May and warned it was his last chance to stay out of jail.

Sending him down this week, Judge Field added: "You've got no one to blame but yourself."

Rob Ross, defending, said Harfield was a "very likeable" young man who had not been convicted of anything since the robberies in June last year.

Swindon Crown Court heard he had started to do the unpaid work and had completed 36 of the 100 hours he was sentenced to.

Mr Ross urged the court to consider any alternative to an immediate jail term, including imposing a suspended sentence. But the judge told him "I meant what I said. This is your fourth breach.

"You have got no one to blame but yourself. You have got to go to custody. Let this be a lesson to you."