The papers agree ASBOs work. Both report that Leeds City Council applied to have the ASBO lifted. But wait. The Mail calls Walker a "teenage tearaway". It mentions that the order barred him from certain areas of the city, forbade him from causing a nuisance and prohibited him from wearing a hooded top or balaclava.
Yet the Mirror summed him up as a former heroin dealer. Surely an ASBO isn't the way the justice system usually treats someone like Walker, who admitted dealing in drugs since the age of 15, and had convictions for robbery and burglaries? Is dealing in heroin regarded as causing a nuisance? Is it on a par with wearing a hoodie?
Of course not. If you ask Walker what turned his life around, he doesn't mention the ASBO. He points to the decision of the court to put him on an Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP) as an alternative to prison. "My relationship with my key worker and other members of the team helped me stop my offending," he said.
Neither paper headlined their story "ISSP works. ASBO expensive and irrelevant". Odd that.
Sue Axon failed in her legal attempt to deny under-16s the right to confidential sexual health advice and abortions.
Reacting to the news, Norman Wells, a director of the Family Education Trust, told the Daily Telegraph: "Young people generally only want to conceal things from their parents when they are doing things that are not good for them."
How on earth does big Norm know this? Has he asked them? It makes as much sense to say: "Children and young people generally only want to conceal things from their parents when they don't want to hurt or alarm them unnecessarily or feel that they may react badly, irrationally and possibly violently."
The Daily Mirror put an exclusive tag on its story that teenagers are a growing target for muggers. There has been a rise in "teen on teen" attacks targeting iPods, mobiles and mountain bikes. "Many teenagers now carry at least 500 worth of equipment on them," says the Mirror. That's exclusive.
