Police chief calls drinks industry to account for yob culture

Communities are under siege from a hardcore of antisocial, under-age drinkers while parents, drinks companies and the advertising industry ignore their duty to tackle the problem, a senior police chief said yesterday.

In an unprecedented statement released just hours after three teenagers appeared in court charged with the murder of the father of three Garry Newlove, the Chief Constable of Cheshire said that society was failing to address the scourge of alcohol-fuelled violence among the young.

Peter Fahy said that parents were abdicating responsibility for their children while traders continued to sell high-strength alcohol at low prices. “To see the issue of antisocial behaviour by teenagers as a problem for the police to resolve is naive. As a nation I believe we need those who sell the alcohol to young people, those who price strong alcohol so cheaply, those who promote alcohol as glamorous, those parents who turn a blind eye to where their children are, those teenagers who ignore the rights of others to live without intimidation or abuse — we need all these elements of our society to rack their conscience and consider what duty they have to beat the scourge of antisocial behaviour by young people.”

Mr Fahy told Channel 4 News last night that the legal drinking age should be raised to 21.

Last night, the Home Office said that it agreed “with the substance” of what the chief constable said.

The UK has one of the highest incidences of youth drunkenness in the European Union, according to the Government’s review of the anti-alcohol strategy. It also found that nearly half of under-age drinkers say that they get their alcohol from their parents.

Among 35 European countries, the UK has the third-highest proportion of 15-year-olds — 24 per cent — who have been drunk ten times or more in the past year.

Alcohol also now costs 54 per cent less in real terms than it did in 1980. Doctors and campaigners have called on the Government to drive up prices, while voicing growing concern at the increase in the strength of beer and wine.

However, The Times has learnt that ministers have ruled out including the question of higher taxation in a review about to start into the impact of price and promotion on both consumption and harms caused by alcohol.

Mr Fahy, who was on patrol near to where Mr Newlove, 47, was attacked in Warrington on Friday night, said that local forces were “engaged in a constant battle against antisocial behaviour and alcohol-induced violence”. He said: “Most of the bad behaviour is fuelled by alcohol — much of it supplied by adults, including some parents. Parents should be the key to tackling this problem. They are responsible for their children — and that responsibility is not abdicated when they become teenagers. The police cannot do it alone.”

His comments came on the day that relatives of Mr Newlove attended the hearing at Runcorn Youth Court, where three boys — two aged 15 and a third aged 16 — appeared on charges of murder. The teenagers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were remanded into local authority secure accommodation to appear at Warrington Magistrates’ Court on August 20.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has called for the tax on alcohol to be increased to reduce the damage being caused to people’s health and to deter excessive drinking.

The criticisms by Mr Fahy will also renew the controversy over the Government’s decision to relax the licensing laws. Figures released by police in Devon and Cornwall yesterday disclosed that serious violent crimes in pubs and nightclubs had jumped by 50 per cent since the reform of the licensing laws.

A total of 67 serious violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder, manslaughter or wounding were recorded at licensed premises in the 12 months after November 2005 compared with 43 in the previous year.

Gordon Brown has promised a review of the effects of the laws after the latest crime figures showed that 1, 087,000 people were attacked by drunken thugs in the year after round-the-clock drinking was allowed in November 2005 — up 64,000 on the previous year.

Times