A 14-year-old boy has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years detention after carrying out a series of terrifying attacks on women drivers in Hampshire.

The Southampton teenager, who cannot be identified due to legal reasons despite a bid by the Daily Echo to lift restrictions on naming him, was sentenced after admitting ten charges including kidnap and robbery.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard how the teenager threatened five women with a six-inch kitchen knife in a spate of attacks over a period of 24 hours.

Stewart Ellacott, prosecuting, described how the teenager first attacked a 22-year-old woman in the car park of Buy-low in Gosport on April 30.

He said the youth had entered the Peugeot car through the passenger door, threatening to knife the woman if she cried out.

Mr Ellacott said: "The woman was told to drive to a quieter side of the car park where he rifled through her handbag taking her purse and cigarettes."

The teenager escaped when he drove the car into a lamppost, having taking the wheel himself. He had subjected four more women to attacks in car parks around Gosport. All the victims escaped unhurt although one woman had to jump from a moving car, having been ordered to drive to Fort Brockhurst.

Suzy Holmes, mitigating, said the attacks had been purely to steal money to pay off debts. She described the teenager as vulnerable and a victim of falling in with the wrong crowd.

Miss Holmes told the court how the teenager, from Southampton, was abandoned by his mother when he was 17 months old. He was then adopted by a family and was later put into the care of social services at the age of 12 when the family broke up.

Since then he had committed almost 20 offences, including criminal damage shop lifting and burglary.

Miss Holmes told the court: "His early experiences left him very vulnerable, completely isolated and rejected after anyone who has looked after him, loved him, or taken care of him has rejected him.

"It is poignant that in all his time in care he has not received one personal visitor. No one comes to see him."

He was sentenced on three counts of kidnap, two attempts of kidnap, one robbery and four attempted robberies.

The teenager must serve at least half the sentence in custody.