They came from outlying towns and districts to the city centre with only one thing on their mind – a night of lawless mayhem.

The young Manchester thugs’ brazen attitude and belief they will face no punishment has stunned police. One 15-year-old masked looter said: ‘They can’t touch me. I’m still a kid.

‘The police can’t hit us, they can’t injure us and when they arrest us they have to let us go so we don’t care what we do on the streets.
‘I’ve got phones and clothes from the raids and what is the worst they can do? Give me a caution or a curfew I won’t obey.’ Another boy said: ‘I’ll keep doing this every day until I get caught. When I get home, I might get shouted at, but that’s it. This’ll be my first offence.

‘The prisons are overcrowded – what are they going to do, give me an Asbo? I’ll live with that.’

A teenage girl who raided a mobile phone store and smashed a BlackBerry on the pavement said: ‘It don’t mean nothing, this. We’re not in it for the stuff, we’re in it for the laugh.’

And a girl who claimed she left school at 13 said: ‘All these rich businesses for rich people are getting a bit of payback and it’s about time the ordinary poor person had a say in this country.’