A swaggering teenage yob dubbed the Singing Defective by despairing police is starting a ten year stretch after mowing down a teenage boy in a stolen car.

From the age of 14 Dean English was at the centre of a criminal network in his home town, which he terrorised through burglaries and car theft.

As long ago as 1995 when he first came to national attention senior officers warned he would kill himself or someone else by racing around in stolen cars.

It was earlier this year that Ian Gourley, 15, was killed as he lay chatting to friends in the middle of a playing field.

English was at the wheel of a stolen Ford Escort which roared out of the darkness and killed Ian before he had chance to scramble to safety.

It is the latest and most tragic of English's 73 convictions committed in and around Peterlee, County Durham, since the age of 12.

English first hit the headlines in 1995, when police admitted they could do nothing to stop his solo crime wave.

Detectives branded the 14-year-old villain 'the Singing Defective' for his habit of smirking and singing "no reply, no reply, no reply " during questioning.

English, who Durham Police said was responsible for ten per cent of all crime in their force area during the early 90's, said he did not fear jail - where he looked forward to "lying about all day, smoking dope".

Police could not jail English because the 1991 Criminal Justice Act lifted the minimum age of juvenile detention from 14 to 15-years-old.

English vowed to quit crime once he turned 15, but then said in a radio interview: "I'll just gan to jail, I'm not bothered. I reckon jail will be just like a holiday camp. I'll just lie in my cell all day, smoking dope."

And now English will find out what prison is like, after he was jailed for ten years, receiving a nine year sentence for causing death by dangerous driving with one year to be served consecutively for arson.

He was also sentenced to six years for driving whilst disqualified and handed a ten-year driving ban, with no separate penalty for driving without insurance.

Sentencing at Durham Crown Court yesterday Judge Richard Lowden: "No sentence that I pass can in any way measure against the loss to the family of this innocent young boy.

"You say you did not realise that the car had struck this boy on the field, of this I have some doubt. You had been driving the car around Peterlee, where a number of witnesses reported that you nearly caused accidents, you were showing off to the two significantly younger co-accused.

"Your record shows that you have previously been convicted of 73 different offences on 49 separate occasions, but no kind of sentence seems to have fated in anyway your remorseless determination to offend .You have on occasions shown some remorse, but this was not translated into action."

The court heard that English was having a hard time in jail, where prison guards and inmates had labelled him a "child killer".

The judge jailed English's co-accused Shaun Morton, 18, of Robson Avenue, Peterlee, for three and a half years in a young offenders institution for aggravated vehicle taking and banned him from the roads for three years and ordered he serve one year prison for arson.

Lee Black, 18, of Rothbury Avenue, Horden, County Durham, was jailed for two and a half years and banned from driving for three years for aggravated vehicle taking, he was also ordered to serve a year for arson.

The court heard how Ian was lying on the ground with two friends at 8.30pm on the evening of Wednesday November 19 last year. The terrified teenagers tried to run as the blinding headlights of the speeding car came straight at them out of the darkness.

The mother of Gemma Crisp, 15, one of Ian's friends heard her daughter's screams after ringing her at the moment the car was approaching.

A stolen black J-registration Ford Escort was being driven on the field known as Pony Field in Peterlee.

The car, containing English and three passengers, was pulling handbrake turns and other dangerous manouevres on the field, the jury heard.

After hitting Ian the car was then driven into a nearby ravine and set alight, it was alleged.

English, 22, of Peterlee, denied causing death by dangerous driving and arson but was convicted after a five day trial.

English claimed he got out of the car shortly before the accident in which Ian was killed.

The young thug became a career criminal who targeted the elderly and recruited men in their 20s and older when he was just 14.

He admitted he gave no thought to his victims, which for the most part were the vulnerable and elderly residents of a housing estate in Peterlee.

Detective Inspector Tim Wilson warned in 1995 English was a callous, cold hearted criminal who knew exactly what he was doing and cared nothing for his victims or for law and order.

He said: "He is an evil, callous, arrogant, teenage tearaway.

"He has a total disregard for all authority. Sometimes during an interview he will talk to you and other times he will sit and sing and stare out of the window. He does not care. He just laughs about it.

"Seasoned officers have to put up with him singing "no reply no reply no reply" across the desk at them at the top of his voice when they are trying to ask him about serious crimes. "

Lavinia Gourley, Ian's mother, said: "I am over the moon with the sentence, this has been a very difficult time and it has been impossible to cope with, it has left me feeling very shaky."