Massive blitz on under-age drinking

April 9, 2008: Police seized 44,265 pints of alcohol from under-age drinkers during a February half-term clamp down on public drinking, Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker revealed today.

The £760,000 Home Office-funded campaign took place between February 8 and 24 February in 165 police force areas across 39 forces in England and Wales.

This was the latest exercise in a wide-ranging programme of enforcement action and education by the government, police, schools and local authorities, designed to tackle underage drinking.

In the coming months the government will publish a youth alcohol action plan which will focus on providing information for parents and young people to make sensible and healthy decisions around drinking, as well as continuing to reduce drinking in public and underage sales.

The campaign was targeted to coincide with the school half-term holiday in each area. Acting on public tip-offs and local intelligence, police officers and police community support officers approached groups of youngsters in underage drinking hotspots and confiscated alcohol wherever they found it. At the same time they asked how old the children were and from where they had obtained alcohol.

If they thought crime and disorder was likely to occur, officers also used directions to leave powers to disperse threatening groups.

During the campaign:

l 25% of the 5,143 youngsters who surrendered alcohol to the police said they were aged 15 or under

l a total of 23,621 youngsters came into contact with the police when alcohol was confiscated

l 3,585 directions to leave were issued

l of the 30% who divulged where they had sourced their alcohol, half said they had bought it from a shop.

Mr Coaker said: "Confiscating alcohol is just one part of our strategy to address the damage and disruption that underage drinking causes to youngsters, their families and the communities they live in.

"We are working across Government to combine tough enforcement of the law with effective alcohol education for children and parents and to help young people find alternative things to do.

"I know the public will welcome police action to disperse groups of threatening youths and choke their supply of alcohol. This campaign will not be the last.

"I also want to remind parents of their responsibility, and where poor parenting is identified as an issue I want to see greater use of parenting contracts to tackle persistent underage drinking.

"I also want to see greater sharing of information between police and local agencies about repeat offenders to address problems as early as possible.

"Police officers tell me that these campaigns yield valuable intelligence about where children get their alcohol. With this in mind, I want to send a strong signal once again to those persistent few irresponsible retailers that deliberately sell to under-18s. They will be caught and they will be punished."