A TEENAGE thug who stabbed a friend with a broken bottle during a bare-chested street fight escaped a jail sentence – because custody has not worked in the past.

Daniel Bell has been locked up several times but his spells behind bars have not stopped him getting into trouble, a judge at Teesside Crown Court said yesterday.

Even his barrister admitted that Bell deserved a custodial sentence for slashing his teenage friend – the 20th conviction on his already-long criminal record.

The 19-year-old was given a suspended sentence in a young offenders’ institution with supervision and an anger management course, and was told: “It’s up to you.”

The judge, Recorder Rodney Jameson, told the Darlington teenager: “You have been in and out of custody and that doesn’t seem to have done you much good.

“I think the time has now come where it is reasonable to believe there is a fair chance you can make a go of it. If you can, then, of course, I would want to help you.”

The judge described the stabbing – which left the 17- year-old victim with a fiveinch cut to his chest wall – as “foolishness”, but said it could have ended in tragedy.

He warned Bell to cut down on his drinking and ordered him to seek help for his temper after hearing him admit he gets angry and usually uses weapons.

In an interview following his arrest, Bell told police that he was a nine-out-of-ten on the drunkenness scale and could not remember anything about the fight.

His barrister, Paul Newcombe, said the teenager hoped to do a two-year carpentry course before taking up a job offer with his father in the Afghanistan war zone.

Mr Newcombe told he judge: “These offences merit a custodial sentence. The question really is can Your Honour, in good conscience, suspend it.

“He has shown some element of contrition, but I have to accept that that may be hard to swallow when one looks at his record, but the victim in this case was a friend.”

Bell, of Arkle Crescent, admitted affray and possessing an offensive weapon, and had his nine-month sentence suspended for two years by Mr Recorder Jameson.

The fight on February 4 – captured on closed-circuit television cameras and shown to the court – was in Clifton Road, Darlington, and in front of shocked passers-by.