SIMON Chenery is a very lucky young man, although he might not agree at this very moment.

I'm sure there are also many other 18-year-olds with an inability to accept their own limitations who would disagree, having seen his mother give him up to police after he burgled her home.

But to have a warning shot across your bows before it's too late is as good as it's going to get for Simon.

Tough love it may be, but any parent who has suffered the kind of mistrust, lies and deceit that his mother has experienced would rightly feel that she deserves a pat on the back and not criticism.

Of course, Simon Chenery is not the only teenager currently making his parents' lives very difficult indeed.

Without falling into the usual newspaper trap of wrongly demonising the majority of youngsters, there are enough parents out there whose children have no concept of conscience or regret to keep Relate busy for decades to come.

If Simon Chenery's friends think he is beyond help, then keep supplying him with drugs and alcohol and pressurising him to find more money, by foul means more than fair, to fuel his habits.

But if those friends believe he is not beyond redemption, then they can help, not hinder, his progress.

For Simon himself, his community order and drug treatment could be the final chance before slipping down a dark slope that leads to nowhere.

The love of a mother takes many forms, but it is an unconditional love and you can only hope that one day, Simon will actually thank his mum for her actions.

They could well have saved his life.