A SENIOR borough councillor fears someone will be killed if the courts do not crack down on the growing problem of violence in Basingstoke.

Deputy Basingstoke council leader Rob Donnelly is calling for heavy deterrent sentences to be meted out to gangs of young thugs.

At last night's full council meeting, Cllr Donnelly was due to ask councillors to support him in writing a letter from the council to local magistrates calling for strong sentences to be handed out for incidents of group violence.

Cllr Donnelly told The Gazette: "We have had a number of incidents of groups of young people viciously assaulting passers-by over the past year.

"The latest incident was well-publicised by your newspaper only last week, together with graphic photographs of the victim. No-one could fail to be sickened by that display of violence by a mob against two innocent people on the street.

"I have been concerned about a number of these attacks for some time. There was one in Buckskin not long ago and another in Oakridge by gangs against individuals. But this last one really focused my mind on it - the picture and description of the young man being beaten with a fence post and his girlfriend being kicked.

"It would just have taken one blow in the wrong place with that post and he would have been dead. There is a lot of violence going on but I particularly want to draw attention to these incidents of young people as a group attacking people and beating them up very badly.

"We have to be seen, as a community, to be taking these assaults very seriously before someone dies as the result of an unprovoked attack. The most demonstrable way of influencing this behaviour is by imposing heavy sentences on these thugs."

Cllr Donnelly was referring to an attack on a 19-year-old man and his girlfriend in South Ham during which he was seriously injured by being hit over the head with a fence post.

The couple were set upon by a 15-strong gang who had offered to sell them drugs as they walked home in the early hours.

A police spokesman told The Gazette: "A number of young people have been questioned about this attack but no-one has yet been charged."

Police have appealed to anyone with any information about the attack - which happened at 1.30am on Saturday, April 6, in an alley between Kings Road and Princes Crescent, South Ham - to contact Basingstoke police on 0845 045 4545 or the confidential Crimestoppers hotline on 0800 555 111.