Among the 19 houses that make up Childers Street, a pack of young savages runs wild. Fearless, lawless and sowing misery with a careless abandon, their reign seems uncontested.

They shout, fight, steal, drink, vandalise, bully, urinate, abuse, litter and deal drugs. When they are bored they throw a brick through your window. Or through the window of a police car.

These feral teenagers from Europe’s future Capital of Culture are not, of course, unique. They have hooded cousins who roam the streets of deprived inner-city communities the length of Britain. What was different about this little no-go world was that after enduring years of intimidation one brave council house resident decided that enough was enough.

She had lived in Childers Street, in the Old Swan area of Liverpool, for half a dozen years and she had watched in growing dismay as decent families moved out and the road began its steady descent into dysfunction.

June Hopkins (not her real name) is 60. Her husband has a serious heart condition. They felt like prisoners in their own home. She saw a Congolese family petrol-bombed out of their house. She watched children attack an ambulance. She saw a gang surround a man with learning difficulties and beat him to the ground.

At night, the grandmother would lie in bed as underage drinkers swarmed outside. Breaking glass, accompanied by the 2am yells and screams of her neighbours and their friends, often made sleep impossible.

So she decided to take a stand. Encouraged by the police and the council, who promised to protect her anonymity, she began to log each incident in a diary provided by the local antisocial behaviour unit.

From April this year Mrs Hopkins spent five months recording daily life in Childers Street. As a portrait of life in one corner of 21st-century Britain, it is a study in despair. The authorities, however, were delighted because the diary finally gave them the evidence they needed to apply for antisocial behaviour orders against the ringleaders of the disorder: five male teenagers aged between 13 and 19.

Mrs Hopkins believed, with good reason, that if the families of those five boys discovered the identity of the person who had “grassed them up” then her life would be in danger. As happens in ASBO cases across the country where witnesses fear reprisals, the local authority agreed that her evidence would be presented to the court by what is known as a professional witness, in this case an enforcement officer, Tracey Proud, from its antisocial behaviour unit. The officer presents the evidence to magistrates on behalf of the vulnerable witness. Crucially, disclosure of the evidence must also be made to the defendants when they are served with their summons.

Home Office ASBO guidelines empahsise that “the welfare and safety of residents whose complaints form the basis of any action must at every stage of the process be the first consideration”.

Councils are told that they have a duty to minimise any potential for witness intimidation; to maintain witness anonymity; and to ensure that it does not “identify them by default (for example through details of location . . . or age)”.

It would seem difficult to spell out the message more clearly, yet earlier this month the council, with the help of the police, breached the guidelines so crassly that it in effect led the young thugs to Mrs Hopkins’s front door.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• What makes the perfect mum?
• To keep me stress-free, no more awareness days, please
• What do lottery winners buy?