Blair backs shopping mall war on 'hoodies'

Tony Blair today backed a shopping-centre ban on yobs in hooded-tops and jackets - after John Prescott revealed how he was confronted by a gang of them.

They spoke out after the Bluewater shopping centre, in Dartford, barred teenagers wearing hoods and baseball caps because they frighten shoppers.

Deputy Prime Minister Mr Prescott admitted he had felt "intimidated" when confronted by 10 boys in "hoodies" in a motorway café last year.

He told the Today programme: "Some kids said something to me and I said, 'What did you say, lad?' He went off and he came back with about 10 people wearing hoods - you know, these [tops] with hoods on." Asked if any of the youths threw a punch at him, Mr Prescott said: "He just came at me in a very intimidating manner. But, of course, I have security control who arrived and they all vanished.

"But what struck me about it, not only did they come with these kind of uniforms, but they had a kind of movie camera to take a film of any such incident. I found that very alarming." The gang may have been part of a new "happy slapping" bullying fad in which yobs use their mobile phones to film each other hitting people, then swap the footage.

Mr Prescott, who famously thumped a pro- hunting protester in 2001, praised the Bluewater decision, while Mr Blair said he had "total sympathy" with what Bluewater had done. He used his first No 10 press conference since the election to pledge to restore "respect in the communities".

Making further crackdowns on anti-social behaviour a major theme for his third term, he said: " Respect towards other people is a modern yearning as much as a traditional one."

He said it was vital for yobs to fear being caught but said a major cause was the breakdown of family responsibility.

"Some kids grow up without proper parenting, without a proper sense of discipline within the family," he said.

Mr Blair, whose eldest son was once found drunk in Leicester Square by police, added: "I can start a debate and I can legislate but what I can't do is raise someone's children for them."