A PIONEERING system designed to speed up the courts system for young offenders in Lancashire has paid dividends in its first year.

Statistics were released by the Home Office this week on the amount of time it takes the courts to deal with persistent young offenders.

Lancashire has one of the best records in the country and current trends point towards further reductions.

The courts in Lancashire took on average 92 days to process a juvenile offender from start to finish last year. In the first three months of this year the number of days had fallen to 83. The average figure in England and Wales last year was 108 days and 96 days for the first quarter of the year. North Yorkshire and Warwickshire had the best records at the start of the year at 62 days while the West Midlands courts had the worst performance with 134 days.

Blackburn was one of the first areas in the country to launch a youth offending team, which helps speed up the court process. The courts were given the power to hand out final warnings to persistent law-breakers along with reparation orders, which aim to make offenders face up to the consequences of their actions.

Blackburn MP and Home Secretary Jack Straw said: "We are continuing to make steady progress towards our pledge to halve the time between arrest and sentence for persistent young offenders.

"Young people must be made to recognise and accept responsibility for their crimes - at the time not many months later. Only when this happens will there be serious pressure on young offenders to change their behaviour rather than settle into a life of crime."