EXCLUSIVE: A TROUBLED teenager desperate to avoid a life of crime has been told the only way to get help for his escalating anger problem is to break the law.

Even a police caution is enough for Youth Offending teams to step-in, but Terence Painter's clean police record is hampering his pleas for help.

Worried parents Pat and Grenville are reaching the end of their tether as 17-year-old Terence's circle of friends includes petty thieves, burglars and drug addicts.

Mrs Painter, of Haden Road, Trowbridge, said despite her son begging for help to stop his demise into crime and violence, they have only hit brick walls.

Wiltshire College student Terence, known as TJ, told the Wiltshire Times the lure of crime was becoming more and more difficult to resist.

"I feel like I want to go out and commit an offence just to get the help I need but I want to stay away from crime," he said.

"The kids who commit crime get all the help they need. It is wrong.

"I am worried my anger problem will get the better of me. I don't want to hurt anyone."

Mrs Painter, 57, has contacted scores of voluntary and professional agencies, including GPs, the Citizens Advice Bureaux and social services but keeps hearing the same message.

One charity official told the mother-of-four her son could wait up to eight months for a counselling session.

She said: "I am being told unless he commits a crime they can't help him. This situation is actively encouraging him to commit crime.

"He punched a hole in my door last week. I am a single parent, I can't afford to keep replacing doors. One time he went out with a baseball bat looking for someone.

"I know he is hanging around with drug addicts and thieves."

North and West Wiltshire Youth Offending Service is due to set up panels geared at targeting eight to 13-year-olds before they commit crime. The Youth Inclusion and Support panels will be launched in January, but at 17 Terence misses the mark by miles.

Youth Offending Service manager, Mike Hitchings, said: "We have been intervening earlier and earlier and now step-in at a second caution. Ordinarily this behaviour would have emerged at an earlier age. We have to aim this new project at one particular group.

"If he had offended the help would be there straight away."

A Wiltshire County Council spokesman said TJ's case fell outside the remit of social services, but GPs and voluntary agencies could provide a solution.

Blaming Trowbridge's lack of facilities for inspiring teenagers to commit crime, Mrs Painter said: "There is nothing for the children, no wonder they turn to crime. There is no cinema or bowling alley the town centre is regressing as time goes on."