THE mother of a pint-sized tearaway locked up for a string of assaults has appealed for people to see the positive side of her daughter.

She believes the six-month sentence and training order handed to the 14-year-old girl by Worcester magistrates this week, will help curb her anger.

The girl is now in a detention centre in Medway, Kent, after she admitted eight offences, including assaults on police officers, criminal damage and harassment.

On one occasion, she broke a restraining order and struck Rebecca Yeomans, aged 17, with an umbrella as she worked in Warndon Fish Bar, the court heard.

Neither the girl, described as a "wildcat" in court, nor her family can be named for legal reasons.

"We are allowed to visit her once a week and she's allowed to call home twice a week," said the mother-of-five yesterday, who herself has convictions for assaulting police officers and a teacher. "She seems to be all right. She's a very angry person and very mixed-up. What she did was wrong and she knew this.

"Many people on the estate complain about her, but there are people who know she is polite."

The mother, 32, said her daughter had done shopping for a pensioner and performed well academically, though she has missed nearly two years' schooling after expulsions.

She said her daughter would eventually be allowed luxuries from home and is due for release on Wednesday, January 24.

The girl used to be friends with Rebecca Yeomans' family, but the two fell out

The mother said her daughter knew she had done wrong, but claimed that police should have bound over all parties concerned to keep the peace when trouble began.

"If the police had asked both families to be bound over to keep the peace, I don't believe this would have escalated," she said.

"I certainly would have agreed to be bound over."

She believed she had done everything possible to stop her daughter from offending.

"We grounded her, but she would just run away. We would lock the front door, but she would climb out of the downstairs toilet window."

*We tried to name the 14-year-old

THE Evening News made two unsuccessful applications to Worcester Magistrates for the teenager's automatic right to anonymity to be lifted.

We believed the girl's persistent offending was having an impact on people in Warndon and that most residents knew who she was.

We argued that naming the girl would provide a deterrent against other offenders her age and help put a stop to the outbreak of trouble residents had been experiencing.

The girl's mother said lifting her daughter's anonymity would have been "harsh" but agreed her identity was already known.

"There are a lot of people in the area who have come up to me and said they were sorry to hear she had been put away, so they know who she is," said the mother.

"In some cases they need to be named and shamed, but I don't think that would have been fair to have named my daughter and not the others involved.

"During the case, I sometimes felt she might as well have been named because people were saying: 'Is that her?'

"But I think she has already had a really big shock and will have done her punishment. Rather than looking to the past as the girl who caused all these problems, I want her to look forward."