A DISRESPECTFUL Chester yob who shouted, swaggered and jeered as his friend was sent to prison spent his Easter break behind bars.

Chaos erupted in court one at Chester Crown Court last Thursday morning as three hooded youths celebrated after their friend Joshua Austin Tudor was sent down for four months for threatening a man and chasing him through the city centre.

Recorder of Chester Judge Elgan Edwards had the three teenagers removed from the public gallery and placed in the dock, before leaving them to stew in the cells for three hours for Contempt of Court following their ‘disgraceful and disrespectful outburst’.

After spending lunchtime locked up two of the teenagers were freed after apologising to the court, but Hayden James Roach was placed behind bars to calm down over the Easter holidays.

Judge Edwards slated the 19-year-old, who lives at Milestone’s Hostel on Canal Side, Chester, saying that he was a ‘disrespectful yob’ whose ‘swaggering attitude’ was not a good example of how a young person should behave.

“You behaved quite disgracefully, not only were you rude and offensive in the public gallery you couldn’t even pull yourself together when you were sent into the dock,” said Judge Edwards, who added the other two teenagers had jumped on the bandwagon and joined in Roach’s outburst.

“I am appalled by his behaviour. It is the swaggering and the bravado and the fact that he thinks he can make these remarks which I find disturbing. There is no reason to indulge in that kind of behaviour, he is not a good example of what a young man should be.”

Roach, who has previous convictions for burglary, failing to surrender and theft, had only been released from custody in January after spending 28 days behind bars for stealing a mobile phone.

Defending, Oliver King said Roach wanted to apologise to the court for his outburst which had happened because he was relieved that he would be seeing his friend released from jail sooner than he expected.

“He has expressed real disappointment in himself and wants to apologise to the court,” said Mr King, who said Roach was due to start a programme working for CWaC in partnership with Cheshire police street cleaning and maintaining the city centre and did not want to go back to prison.

Roach was released from custody on Tuesday after spending about 120 hours in the cells after the court was closed for the Easter bank holidays meaning he had to spend the long weekend behind bars.

He received seven days in prison for contempt of court and was released immediately from custody.