A 15-YEAR-OLD expectant father has narrowly avoided jail after burgling a seafront cafe.

The young crook smashed a window at the Three Shells Cafe, in Southend, and stole £652 of stock and cash.

He and an accomplice went through the kitchen filling 20 to 25 binbags full of food on August 17, and were captured on CCTV.

The boy, who lives in Westcliff but cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared before Southend Youth Court where he pleaded guilty to burglary.

The court heard he had previous convictions for shop theft and for assaulting his girlfriend during an incident which involved dragging her by her hair. S

he is now pregnant with his child and due to give birth in March next year.

Lesley Turner, mitigating, told the magistrates: “This was a spur of the moment thing that he and his friend decided to do as they were walking past.

“As you’ve probably heard from the pre-sentence report he was under the influence of cannabis at the time this offence was committed and can’t give an explanation as to why it was committed.”

She said he was remorseful and felt he had let his parents down. The court heard he had been on a referral order with the Youth Offending service for his past offences.

The youngster said: “I’m sorry for the victims that I offended. I was under the influence and it won’t happen again.”

Martin Hampson, chairman of the bench, said he was re-sentencing the boy for all three of his past offences.

Regarding the assault on the young woman he said: “You should be ashamed of yourself, she’s a vulnerable victim, a young lady, that’s not the sort of thing you should be doing.”

He said they’d had to make “serious decisions” about whether to send the boy to prison. But he instead he ordered an 18 month Youth Rehabilitation Order with the youth offending service with 15 days of reparation work.

Mr Hampson asked the boy’s mother how much compensation she could pay. She said she could offer nothing because she was on benefits, but Mr Hampson noted she had been giving her son £50 a week. He ordered that £500 compensation be paid to the victim, at a rate of £30 a week. The accomplice was never caught.

Philip Miller, who owns the cafe, said: “We also believe he had an accomplice who he refused to name, and that alone should have invoked a custodial sentence.

"The whole family are just taking the Mickey out of the system. However I have the deep satisfaction that someone like he is only heading one way and that is down - I do hope he enjoys his prison food when he finally gets to taste it.

"I am a firm believer that long sentences keep prisons empty – shame our daft leaders have totally missed this point."