3:30pm UK, Tuesday June 10, 2008

A judge has used YouTube to punish two boys who threw a soft drink over a fast food worker and posted a film of the attack on the video sharing site.

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Video was youths' downfall

The teenagers had taken part in a prank known as "fire in the hole", which has become popular in the US and copies what soldiers yell when something is about explode.

The boys shouted the phrase before hurling a 32oz cup of soda at Jessica Ceponis at Taco Bell in Viera, Florida, and driving off.

Later they posted the attack on YouTube.

But the video was their undoing, for enterprising Ms Ceponis used it to trace the boys' names and phone numbers through their MySpace accounts.

The 16-year-old driver and a passenger, aged 15, were charged with criminal mischief and battery.

A judge ordered them to make a video apologising for their crime. It shows them them face-down and handcuffed on the bonnet of a car and post it on the website.

They also have to write an apology and do 100 hours of community service.

The judge, prosecutor and defence attorneys who devised this punishment said they hope it will serve as a deterrent.

"You need to broadcast the apology so that the audience is seeing there were consequences," saidlawyer Tony Hernandez, for one of the defendants.