Teenager jailed for wearing a hoodie in town centre

Talliq Mwalim is third member of drug-running C17 gang to be jailed

Talliq Mwalim, 19, has been jailed for breaching a court order ( SWNS)

A teenager has been jailed after he was caught wearing a hoodie.

Talliq Mwalim was found wearing the garment in the town centre of Maidstone in Kent, in violation of a court order.

The 19-year-old gang member from neighbouring Essex had been banned from wearing hooded clothes except in bad weather, Essex Police said.

Other restrictions included a ban on meeting other members of the gang and on congregating in pairs or larger groups “in a way likely to make a person feel intimidated”, the force added.

It said in a statement that similar injunctions applied to 11 members of the C17 gang, who are also barred from entering swathes of the borough of Thurrock.

“The gang first came to the attention of the [force] in May 2017 as they became heavily involved in drug dealing and violence,” it added. “Evidence gathered by police included detail of how the gang have preyed on young children in the community, enticing them into the gang and then exploiting them by getting them to run drugs, carry cash from deals or knives.”

Mwalim, of Gillingham, was caught wearing the hoodie on 17 August this year.

He was jailed for 12 weeks at Chelmsford County Court on Tuesday, for two breaches of his order – one for wearing the hoodie and the other by meeting with another gang member, Sahin Korta-Haupt.

He was also handed a further six weeks’ imprisonment after the court activated a suspended sentence.

Nineteen-year-old Korta-Haupt was also sentenced to 129 days in a young offenders’ institution earlier this month.

Sergeant Scott Fitzmaurice, of Essex Police’s Operation Raptor gang squad, said: “Mwalim is the third member of the C17 gang that we have successfully put behind bars in recent months. We not only secured this tough gang injunction, but we will continue to robustly police it and continue to put members of C17 before the courts.”

Additional reporting by SWNS