350 bottles of alcohol seized from kids

Nearly 350 hundred bottles or cans of alcohol were seized from kids as part of a two week booze clampdown.

Police confiscated more than 240 bottles or cans of beer, more than 40 bottles of cider, 28 bottles of alcopops, 20 bottles of spirits and 17 bottles of wine in Suffolk between Friday, February 8 and Sunday, February 24.

The campaign saw officers stepping up patrols in areas where there has been alcohol-related anti-social behaviour and taking alcohol from children drinking in public.

Children were dispersed where crime or anti-social behaviour was suspected and parents were notified where their kids were drinking.

Trading Standards officers joined police on patrol and young people were employed to carry out test purchases to see if stores asked for proof of age.

Two stores made illegal sales and one adult was discovered purchasing alcohol for a child.

Inspector Matt Dee, who oversaw the campaign in the south and east of the county, said: “Clearly there have been a number of items seized and the initiative has been well publicised nationally, which may well have deterred young people from engaging in the consumption of alcohol over the half-term holiday.

“We have worked with partner agencies in a constructive manner - engaging underage drinkers, providing clear educational advice on health and the social implications and consequences of drinking in addition to the legalities surrounding sales.

“Offices have made dozens of patrols in both uniform and plain clothes and have only located comparatively small quantities of alcohol.”

Police also issues a fixed penalty notice to a mum who had bought alcohol in Stowmarket's Asda for her daughter and the girl's two friends.

Officers plan to repeat the exercise in some parts of the county later this year.

More than 1,340 children under the age of 14 are admitted to hospital each year because of binge drinking.

Hundreds of other children were monitored in Accident and Emergency departments as outpatients after being harmed by alcohol.

In the next decade many more people in their twenties are expected to be diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver because of childhood drinking. Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver that damages the normal structure of the organ.

Evening Star