A teenage joyrider who clashed with her parents and dropped out of school has won a prestigious award for turning her life around.

Lauren Johnson, 17, has been named as the Prince's Trust and Barclays Achiever of the Year after impressing judges with her youth work.

But, little more than a year ago, she was unemployed and living away from her family after dropping out of Cardinal Newman School in Hove without any GCSEs.

Lauren, of Ditchling Road, Brighton, said: "I was in with a bad crowd of friends. We spent our time stealing cars, though luckily I never got in trouble with the police.

"I was arguing with my family a lot and I moved out to live with my boyfriend.

"At school I was a rebel. I wouldn't do anything teachers asked me to do. I was just walking in and out of school when I felt like it."

Lauren started to change her attitude, though, when her mother, Evelyn, persuaded her to join the Prince's Trust Volunteers programme last autumn.

The 12-week personal development course set her the challenge of building a sensory garden for disabled children at Ceres House residential home in Hove in December.

She played a major part in fund-raising and managed to obtain all the materials needed, including flowers, plants and tyres, as well as securing £600-worth of free concrete for a path, and negotiated for its delivery from Portsmouth to Brighton.

Lauren said: "What I was up to before used to be a laugh but as soon as I started with the Prince's Trust I knew this was what I wanted to do.

"I realised how much my attitude and behaviour had been hurting the ones I loved the most. I enjoyed my youth work so much."

Tom Sweetman, of Youth Clubs Sussex, who nominated Lauren for the award, said: "Immediately she started on the course Lauren showed herself to be caring and understanding to other members of the team."

When her programme ended, Lauren stayed with the Prince's Trust in Rochester Gardens, Hove, to guide 16 to 25-year-olds taking later courses.

She also helped with the opening of a second Prince's Trust base in Queen's Road, Brighton, earlier this year.

Lauren has now started five GCSE courses at Lewes College and hopes to become a full-time youth worker.