THE first anonymous letter was simply addressed: Debbie Williamson, mother of “Yob Aneeze”, Shipley, West Yorkshire. It had been posted with a second-class stamp the day before in Peterborough and such is the notoriety of the Williamson family that it did not need a postcode, a street name or number to find its intended target.

The unsigned correspondence, vituperative and crude, reduced Ms Williamson to a bout of tears. The letter contained the same sort of profanity that is used by her own son, Aneeze, 11, and that has led to him becoming probably the youngest person in Britain to receive an antisocial behaviour order.

“Why do they send me letters like this?” wept the 36-year-old unmarried mother of three at her home. “They don’t know me or my son and they don’t know what’s been going on.”

The letter arrived on Saturday as West Yorkshire Police made their latest visit to the family home to pick up the child who has been described as “out of control, the ring-leader of a pack of local hooligans” and a child who “appears to have no regard for other people’s property and belongings”.

One mother of three young children, who said she is “desperate to move” from the area, spoke of how, for weeks on end, she had stones and eggs thrown at her front door and windows. “They made our life hell, that’s the only word I can find to describe it,” she said. “At the centre of it all was this little kid Aneeze. You daren’t say anything to them because his mouth is so filthy all that comes out is a stream of swearing and downright nastiness.”

A local shopkeeper who had been the victim of theft, criminal damage and abuse, said: “Young kids like to hang around on street corners, it’s the way of the world I suppose. But things change when Aneeze Williamson and a couple of his friends join the group. He’s only 11, but he’s a dangerous kid in my eyes.”

One young father said that his family had been driven from their home. “They started by throwing bricks through our windows, then came dog muck, then they broke in and stole things from our home,” he said. “One night after we’d been out for a family celebration we returned to find Aneeze and a group of his mates had broken into our kitchen and stolen some alcohol from our fridge.

“I went outside and they were in the neighbouring garden, drinking the stuff. They weren’t bothered that I could see they’d stolen the bottles. When I confronted them, all I got was abuse and threats they’d beat up our kids.” The long list of crimes committed by Aneeze, both before and after his tenth birthday, runs to four sheets of A4 paper. It is littered by numerous thefts from homes and shops, assault, including one offence of causing actual bodily harm — the 22-year-old victim suffered a punctured lung — as well as many burglaries, arson and cases of criminal damage.

During the 72 hours that The Times spent with Aneeze and his family, the police knocked on the front door shortly before 10am only to find that the boy was still in bed. A sergeant patiently explained to his mother that officers would return to arrest him for questioning about other offences.

Standing on her doostep in her nightdress, Ms Williamson complained loudly that she and her son were being “harassed”.

The sergeant, who had heard it all before, walked away to carry on arresting other youths on the Windhill Estate on the outskirts of Shipley.

Ms Williamson’s anger and complaints are a common theme in assessing how the police have treated her son. “They arrest him for having a bit of cannabis, but ignore the dealers who are everywhere. Aneeze is an easy target for them and they ignore the bigger criminals. He’s not as bad as they say,” she added, constantly dragging on a rolled-up cigarette. “It’s just ... it’s just ... he needs help, the right sort of help ... and I need help with him.”

Help is in short supply for Aneeze Williamson, who was first picked up by police at the age of 6 and who has been criminally rampant ever since.

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