A TEENAGER has avoided jail despite being part of a gang that firebombed a string of cars and vandalised houses over unpaid drug debts.

Five gang members firebombed cars and vandalised houses to intimidate customers who refused to pay their drug debts.

Four men and one teen boy torched vehicles then smashed shop and restaurant windows during a six-week campaign of terror across three seaside towns.

Charlie Banks, 24, Haydyn Russell, 18, James McKenna and Bradley Froud, both 19, as well as a 17-year-old boy from Buckinghamshire, launched the attacks to protect their business selling cocaine, cannabis, ketamine and MDMA.

One of the gang members was caught with videos of the cars they set on fire on his phone and photos of smashed restaurant windows as well as the lighter fluid used to start the blazes.

The first case of criminal damage was last June 3 when the windows of a restaurant in Hastings, East Sussex, were smashed in the early hours of the morning.

Then on June 27,  smoke grenades were set off in a shop and shelves were smashed in neighbouring St Leonards.

Just over a week later, a car was set on fire while parked outside a house in Rye, around 15 miles away.

The quick-thinking owner was able to move the car away from the building to stop the inferno spreading, police said.

Four days later a van parked outside the same address was also deliberately set alight by the arsonists.

The next day another car parked outside a different home in Rye was also set on fire and a window at the property was smashed.

Then two days later another car was set alight outside a house in nearby Peasmarsh, police said.

Investigators discovered all these attacks were linked to drug dealing as a way for the gang to enforce the payment of drug debts by striking fear into their victims.

PC Ciaran Gaymer, of Sussex Police's Hastings Community Investigations Team, said: “These men caused significant harm to our district, both through the supply and distribution of harmful drugs, and through their subsequent violent offending.

“The impact on the victims was huge - not only financial to repair the physical damage caused, but emotional too.

“They were living in fear for themselves and their families, and didn’t feel safe in their own homes or places of work."

At Lewes Crown Court, the four men were jailed for a total of more than 21 years, while the boy was banned from the county of East Sussex for three years

The 17-year-old boy from Buckinghamshire, who the court ordered cannot be named, avoided jail despite admitting conspiracy to commit arson recklessly endangering life, conspiracy to commit criminal damage and possession of cannabis.

He was handed a 36-month youth rehabilitation order to include 160 hours of unpaid work, a six-month curfew, and banned from entering East Sussex for 36 months.