Young thugs are to be given the chance to defer paying on-the-spot fines for disorder and shoplifting if they agree a voluntary contract with police to improve their behaviour.

The Home Office move will allow police to impose a set of conditions on offenders, who will be able to defer payment of the fine of either £50 or £80. The fine will be dropped if they abide by the contract for six months.

Local councils and housing associations backed the plan, arguing that the community could benefit. However, almost 40 per cent of respondents to a consultation paper rejected the idea. The Crown Prosecution Service was concerned that a deferred fixed-penalty notice would overlap with an offender receiving a conditional caution.

A paper published by the Home Office yesterday said that many agencies felt that the plan would be useful.

However, Kevin Hawkins, director of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Treating shoplifters in the same way as people caught for littering or swearing in public is ludicrous.”

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