A TEENAGER who took part in an attack on a cabbie also went out with a gang that was armed with a machete, a court was told.

Burnley Magistrates heard how Gareth Lee Peter Cooper, 18, thought the weapon had been taken along two months earlier for "bravado" and was shocked when they went to someone's house and a man was threatened with the weapon.

Cooper was given a 12 month community rehabilitation order, to include the Addressing Substance Related Offending Programme, after admitting theft, attempted theft, affray, assault causing actual bodily harm, criminal damage, two charges of allowing himself to be carried in a vehicle taken without consent and two bail act offences. He was banned from driving for a year.

The bench told the defendant, said by his solicitor to be behind a "wild burst of criminal activity", he had committed "quite a catalogue of offences in a very short period". They added he seemed to have gone off the rails and for a "bright lad," like him, it did not seem right.

Cooper, who is in custody awaiting sentence for burglary, told the magistrates he was definitely going to mend his ways. The defendant, of Thorburn Drive, Whitworth, said he wanted to get a job and stay out of jail.

Andy Robinson, prosecuting, said the defendant had asked the taxi driver for cash and his mobile phone. That was refused and the victim got out of the vehicle.

Another man then pulled open the driver's door and kicked the cabbie in the head. Cooper was not responsible for that but was effectively acting in a joint enterprise.

The driver got out to confront the two men and Cooper jumped on the bonnet and kicked in the windscreen. When the defendant was later arrested, he told police he had been "wrecked".

He claimed he and his friends had drunk several litres of cider and taken ecstasy tablets. Cooper said he wanted to apologise to the taxi driver and had not set out to cause trouble.

Cooper's defence told the court when he went out with the gang he knew one of them had the machete.

Cooper was intelligent and committed offences at the instigation of others because of drink and drugs.

He had earlier asked to be remanded in custody because he was getting himself into a lot of trouble and thought jail was the best place for him. He had now served the equivalent of a 10 week sentence behind bars.