HE was pictured outside the court building smoking a cigarette. Offence No 1 - he is only 13. He tossed the butt onto the ground. Offence No 2 - littering.

But these crimes pale beside those which brought Jon Smee before a magistrates' court - aggravated vehicle taking, driving while disqualified, uninsured, and over the alcohol limit (by one and a half times).

The youngest drink-driver yet convicted, Smee had driven a stolen Ford Mondeo, without its headlights on, through the night-time streets of Salford at 70mph. Veering to the wrong side of the road, he narrowly missed a pedestrian before crashing at a roundabout.

After learning that Smee had previous convictions for stealing vehicles and driving while disqualified, and had been under a supervision order imposed only a month before he stole the Mondeo and drove it to the danger of anyone unlucky enough to be in his path, district judge John Finestein, told him:

"There is a culture among young men that when you walk out of this court with a supervision order you think you have got away with it and can just go back to what you are doing. In giving a custodial sentence, I am sending out a message that drinking and driving at any age is a very serious offence and a prison sentence will follow."

Admirable words, sir. You voice the thought of every decent citizen. So let's hear the punishment this arrogant young menace is to receive.

Four months' detention and a four-year driving ban. The sound of a very large, deflating balloon fills the air. Judge Finestein's bark far exceeds his bite.

Perhaps the law muzzles him. But Smee had twice breached anti-social behaviour orders. The least time he should be out of circulation is four years, not four months. And as for the driving ban - shall we say 20 years?

Certainly, unless driving bans for serious motoring offences cover long periods, "messages" like Judge Finestein's seems destined to fall on deaf ears. Whatever their length, driving bans should carry a condition that if they are breached the offender will not be allowed to drive again for a very long time, perhaps life, and will also go to jail.

Only such draconian measures are likely to prevent the frequent loss of innocent lives through reckless driving. Last week, for example, Leeds Crown Court heard how a 69-year-old retired university lecturer, a former ballroom dancing champion who had given his own time to teaching many others to dance, died when a Porsche being driven wildly along a country road collided head on with his vehicle as he and his long-term partner were returning from an evening's dancing. For causing death by dangerous driving, the 33-year-old Porsche driver was jailed for three-and-a-half years (in reality under two, and banned from driving for just five years).

Similar cases are reported weekly. It is astonishing that among all New Labour's fancy initiatives on crime and punishment, the leniency still extended to serious motoring offenders has yet to be tackled. Citizens going about their normal business should not risk death or injury through people who drive without a thought for others. Before offenders can get the message it needs to be received, and sent out again, loud and clear, by the Government. How many more lives will be needlessly ruined as we wait?