Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

Lancashire is a hotspot of drunken girls fighting, swearing and risking serious disease by abusing booze, figures have revealed.

Girls as young as 12 have been hit with on-the-spot fines by police for a catalogue of drunken behaviour across the county.

The instant fines – which can be for £50 or £80 depending on the offence – were issued to 1,256 girls under the age of 21 in Lancashire last year.

That is more than anywhere else in the country except Merseyside and dwarfs the fines handed out in London, Manchester and the West Midlands.

Police chiefs have admitted at least one of the fines was handed to a girl aged just 12 for drunken behaviour.

The fines were handed out for offences like fighting, urinating in the street and shouting drunken abuse.

The figures come just months after the Lancashire Evening Post reported how 128 children under 14 had drunk themselves into hospital last year – the second highest level in the country.

A spokesman for alcohol campaigners the Portman Group welcomed the "proactive" use of fixed penalty notices, saying the figures could mean Lancashire police are clamping down harder than other areas on the problem.

He added: "It is a very serious problem, particularly the harm associated with one-off bingeing.

"What we have is a growing problem with people who are underage getting hold of alcohol. What we have not seen is the police actively tackling the problem at source – going into problem retailers and stopping children buying alcohol in the first place."

The Lancashire Evening Post's own probe into the state of boozy youths last year uncovered a picture of young teens and children abusing drink. We spoke to children as young as 11 who admitted drinking every week.

Steve Edwards, chairman of Lancashire Police Federation, said: "I don't think this is a surprise. Throughout the country there is a culture of young people drinking more.

"Do I think fixed penalty notice deter someone from doing it? I don't know. In most cases it probably does not. If they are that bad you need some sort of alcohol education really."

Lancashire Evening Post