Witnesses to turn youth booze tap off

ADULTS who buy alcohol for children could be caught red-handed in a new crackdown on underage drinking.

Professional witnesses will be used to monitor off-licences and supermarkets where police suspect so-called "proxy buying" is taking place.

Newcastle Safer Communities Partnership has won £15,600 of Home Office funding for Operation Taps (Tackling Alcohol Proxy Sales).

The campaign started in Chesterton and Audley, and will now also target Newcastle town centre, Butt Lane, Wolstanton and Kidsgrove, for three months.

In addition to the covert surveillance of off-licences and test purchase operations, the campaign will also see shopkeepers and customers being educated about proxy buying.

Inspector Amanda Davies, pictured, commander of Newcastle neighbourhood policing unit, said: "We don't have any statistics to show that proxy buying is increasing, but what we have found is that there has been an increase in young people's access to alcohol.

"So they are either buying it themselves – which we don't think is the case because test purchasing has been so successful – or it is being bought by other people.

"Youngsters may be stopping people in the street, or it could be that their parents buying it for them."

The funding will allow police to station professional witnesses outside off-licences. Adults who are caught this way face an £80 on-the-spot fine, and could be charged with a criminal offence.

Trading standards officers will also monitor premises.

PCSOs will visit 53 off-licences and supermarkets to point out the consequences of selling alcohol to under-18s, and hand out leaflets to parents. Police will also enforce alcohol prohibition zones.

Inspector Davies added: "Alcohol is one of the main factors when analysing why anti-social behaviour is committed, so it is vital that we challenge and prosecute proxy buyers, as well as off-licences who sell alcohol directly to young people."

Coloured carrier bags carrying an anti-alcohol message will be given to licensed premises, and a Bluetooth messaging device will be used to send text messages to mobile phones.

NHS North Staffordshire will distribute information leaflets.

Operation Taps will target all six neighbourhoods simultaneously during the February half-term week.

Councillor Phil Maskery, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities on Newcastle Borough Council, said: "This scheme will send out a warning to proxy buyers and licensees that they are being watched, and that their illegal actions will not be tolerated."