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Town Hall chiefs are calling for a meeting with magistrates over “lenient” sentencing of prolific young criminals involved in phone snatching, drug dealing and violence.

It is reckoned that around 200 young people, often with gang affiliations, are involved in serious crime in Islington. Council chiefs are concerned that word is getting around among this group that they will not face serious consequences for their behaviour because of the sentencing regime at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court.

In a scrutiny committee report, published this week, councillors raised concerns that magistrates are letting some juveniles off with minor sentences because they are failing to identify them as serial offenders. In one instance a mobile phone snatcher had committed more than 50 offences before being jailed, the report said.

The Town Hall says this flies in the face of a new approach adopted by council and police chiefs last year to focus not primarily on offences but on the most prolific young criminals.

Commenting on the report, Islington’s community safety chief, Councillor Paul Convery, said: “The bench looks at a young man caught in a ruckus on the street but who has not used a knife, and they look at that as a relatively minor offence. But that violent behaviour might be part and parcel of a pat­tern of offending; possession of weapons, theft of phones, and conveyancing drugs.

“My fear is that they’re taking these cases an offence at a time, without taking into account what may well be a very long string of similar offences, which taken together proves they have a very troublesome young ­person in front of them.”

He added: “We don’t know how the magistrates are coming to their decisions. I think prosecutors are doing their best to show persistent offending records to magistrates.”

Islington has the highest rates of phone-snatch offences in the country, high levels of youth violence, and one of the worst youth re-offending rates in London, though the Town Hall say the situation is improving. A shake-up of the council’s youth offending service has been underway for some months following a damning inspection report in January.

Cllr Convery stressed prison is only one way of stopping youngsters from committing crimes but said getting the right sentences for serial offenders would act as a deterrent.

He added: “We don’t simply want to be whacking people in jail but we do want the message to get out to the community that there if you go on one-man crime sprees you will end up in prison.

“We’re very concerned that there’s multiple re-offending in the first instance. What worries me is that the word is getting around about the leniency. A lot of young offen­ders are making a judgment in their minds about risk and they’re work­ing on the assumption that even if they’re arrested, charged and convicted that they end up with something pretty slight. Once word gets out that that’s the game, there’s no longer any serious deterrent.”

In March, the Tribune revealed that extra resources are being drafted in from the Home Office, Scotland Yard and the National Crime Agency to tackle sophisti­ca­ted crime networks that have made Islington “the phone theft capital of the world”.

The Met last year launched two operations clamping down on phone thieves, but little is known about the organised networks which redistribute the stolen phones and supply thieves with cash or drugs.

The report notes that “there is a need for more community intelligence and targeted police work on possible organised crime links to identify mobile phone thieves and to look at the links between these thefts and the drug trade”.

Asked what progress has been made with these investigations, Cllr Convery added: “Three years ago stolen phones were being shipped out of the country. But we’ve learned that because of technological advances, phones are being reset here, as part of a local cottage industry. That’s made the distribution of stolen phones more localised. There’s organised crime behind it; the people who are fixing phones and are supplying mopeds, and drugs. It’s quite a tight mix of criminal networks. We’ve asked for serious help from the Met and specialist investigative resources into finding out how the supply networks work and I think we’re making some progress.”

The council’s policy and performance scrutiny committee launched a review into knife crime and mobile phone theft in Islington last June. The probe aimed to develop a better understand­ing of the causes of knife crime and phone theft and what the council could do to reduce these types of crime.

Commenting on the concerns raised over sentencing at Highbury Corner, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “This government is committed to keeping our streets safe from knife crime. Our message is clear – if you carry a knife, you face going to prison.

“Since 2010 and under this government, offenders committing the most serious crimes are more likely to go to prison and for longer. But sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the independent judiciary, who base their decisions on the facts of each case.”

The report will be discussed by the committee at the Town Hall on Monday evening.