A PAIR of "reckless" youngsters tried to blow up two Plymouth phone boxes with home-made explosives, a court has been told.

Teenager Robin Rice and his accomplice Lee Newcombe, 21, caused hundreds of pounds of damage with their "thoughtless prank", Plymouth magistrates were told.

Police described 18-year-old Rice's makeshift bomb — made by attaching a disassembled firework to a flammable cannister — as an "improvised explosive device" that could have caused serious injury.

Both admitted one joint charge of criminal damage and one of attempted criminal damage when they appeared in court yesterday.

The court was told how garage worker Newcombe, from Glenholt, had driven to the Milehouse area of the city with Rice on October 20 last year.

Rice, himself from Milehouse, had already made the explosives and placed one in a phone box in Outland Road.

The explosion caused nearly £200 of damage and blew the entire phone casing from the booth, said prosecutor Eoin McCarthy.

The pair then targeted another BT phone box in nearby Seagrave Road — but that time, the makeshift device failed to fully explode.

Mr McCarthy told the court: "Both offences involve damage caused to two telephone kiosks with what the police describe, perhaps rather grandly, as improvised explosive devices.

"They concocted what was effectively a firework and combined it with another form of metal tubing to cause an explosion."

Newcombe, of Buena Vista Drive, had never been arrested before and "deeply regretted" the incidents, the court was told.

His solicitor Michael Crumley said he had been "foolish and foolhardy", though the Crown Prosecution Service accepted he was not the ringleader.

District Judge Paul Farmer let Newcombe walk free with a £270 fine, also ordering him to pay £91.03 compensation, a £15 victim surcharge and contributions towards costs.

But Rice, who was conditionally discharged in March for driving offences and is awaiting trial over a separate allegation, was warned he may face custody.

"Your behaviour appals me and causes me substantial concern," Mr Farmer told Rice, of Oates Road, granting him unconditional bail before sentencing on August 17 so further reports could be prepared.