"I wonder how people will deal with something like that,'' a magistrate asked yesterday, after he sent a Pembroke teen to a juvenile home for two years for attacking a tourist.

Magistrate Carlisle Greaves was commenting after he heard the boy had kicked in the chest an American tourist who was fighting off an accomplice -- an adult who will face a Supreme Court judge in the near future.

"I don't see the point of making a probation order,'' Mr. Greaves said. "It doesn't make any sense. I am not making a punishment for a crime, I'm sending him to some director who might let him go!'' He added: "We are satisfied that the only option is to order him into the custody of the director of Child and Family Services. I wonder how the public will deal with something like that.

"Residential care would be a good place for you but I have no authority to commit you. Oh, dear! They might as well stop having probation services (evaluate) you and send them over to Family Services. The director has the same power and maybe more.'' The outburst came after hearing the 14-year-old had followed Frank and Barbara DelRay off a bus at Cambridge Road and onto a Beach at Daniel's Head park.

Prosecutor Peter Giles said the couple had noted the pair's presence some distance away, were later confronted by the older person and pushed into a chain link fence.

Prosecutor Peter Giles said the DelRay's "put up something of a fight'' and when Mr. DelRay tried to run away, the boy kicked him causing him to momentarily loose his balance.

He also had a short struggle with the woman over her handbag which she refused to let go.

From a distance away, the boy was seen to throw bottles at the couple before running off.

The culprits were caught by Police a short while later and the juvenile admitted the assault.

Insp. Giles said: "There was no visible injury but it is a distasteful set of circumstances. It's not the type of thing that we need at this time of promoting and reviving tourism.'' Afterward, the boy denied throwing the bottles and grabbing the woman's purse.

"I was behind them and the other guy went to them and they started fighting,'' he told the court. "Then the man came running and screaming at me so I jumped up and kicked him.'' Mr. Greaves, a Barbadian, said: "Where I come from, they call this the destruction of the goose that lays the golden egg. You can't be soft on this kind of thing. A man was committed to prison for this type of thing.'' A report from the boy's school was read silently by Mr. Greaves who at the end said "whoo!'' and said: "You've been getting an A in bad behaviour.'' A social worker with the separate Family Services Department said the boy was disruptive on the rare occasions he was in school and was "out of control''.

"What you mean, out of control,'' the boy spun and said sharply to the social worker.

His mother, who throughout the hearing alternately slowly shook her head and looked at her son as the details were read out, said: "You fail to realise the choices you make. You are old enough to make your bed and you've got to lay in it.''