A SUFFOLK judge finally ran out of patience with a 19-year-old after hearing how he had re-offended four times after being given a suspended sentence.

A SUFFOLK judge finally ran out of patience with a 19-year-old after hearing how he had re-offended four times after being given a suspended sentence.

Judge David Goodin branded Joseph Woolnough a “terrifying thug” after learning that his catalogue of offending during the last six months included knocking a man unconscious by hitting him on the head with a crutch and being racially abusive to a Woodbridge man and throwing a brick at his door.

Sentencing him to a 36-week custody term, Judge Goodin said: “You have been doing your level best to get yourself sent into a young offenders' institution.

“Since January 22 the criminal courts have been trying their hardest, because of your age, to avoid sending you to a young offenders' institution. You have finally succeeded because you have run out of rope.

“You have been behaving like a terrifying thug - frightening people, using violence and abusing them on the grounds of their colour or racial origin. It is wholly appalling behaviour.”

Woolnough, of Council Houses, Yarmouth Road, Ufford was committed to Ipswich Crown Court for sentence after admitting criminal damage, racially aggravated threatening behaviour, using threatening words and behaviour and two breaches of a 36-week custodial sentence suspended for two years which was imposed in January.

The court heard that Woolnough had appeared in court in February and March for breaching the suspended sentence by committing public order offences but on both occasions had been given a chance to stay out of trouble.

Godfried Duah, prosecuting, said that on May 1 at about 10pm Woolnough had hit a man in the head who was walking along Cumberland Street, Woodbridge with a crutch.

The man had been knocked to the ground unconscious and had spent the night in hospital.

Several weeks later, on June 27, Woolnough went to a flat in Castle Street, Woodbridge and had been racially abusive to an Asian man who lived there and had thrown a brick at his door.

Ian Boyes for Woolnough said his client had pleaded guilty to all the offences. He said Boyes had an addiction to alcohol and lacked motivation.