Now police want to make it a crime to buy a drink for a drunken friend
THE police chief in charge of tackling binge-drinking says pub-goers should be fined if they buy more alcohol for a friend who is already drunk.
Scotland Yard Commander Simon Letchford claims people would stop going out with rowdy friends if they knew they could be penalised for buying them drinks.
The senior officer also says he would like to charge drunken revellers for the cost of them being treated in Acci- dent & Emergency, so that they realise there are consequences for their bad behaviour. But critics last night branded the idea ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unenforceable’.
Mr Letchford, who is a borough commander in London and also the National Police Chiefs Council’s lead officer on alcohol and harm reduction, made the comments at a meeting of the London Assembly on Thursday.
Asked by Conservative politician Roger Evans what could be done about people who go out with the intention of drinking excessively and having a ‘violent confrontation at the end of the evening so they have something to talk about the day after’, Mr Letchford said: ‘There are a small core of people, not just men but women as well, who are going out on Friday and Saturday nights and getting drunk as part of their social group. And they don’t see that as not normal.
‘They don’t look at the fact that most people don’t go and get involved in a fight or some sort of disorder.’
He added: ‘Some of the things we have talked about is whether you actually start to challenge the people. So if I go out with you, you get drunk, I get a fine because I keep buying you drinks while you’re drunk.
‘So then you start to lose your social circle of friends because they think, “Well, I’m not going out with you because every time I go out with you I get a fine.” We just have to be a bit more creative about how we challenge that social norm that it’s OK to go out, get drunk and get into a fight.’
The controversial suggestion echoes Tony Blair’s much-mocked plan for louts to pay on-the-spot fines if they are caught being drunk and disorderly. But critics say it would be impossible for police to prove who had bought a fateful pint of beer, glass of wine or measure of spirits that led to a friend becoming aggressive or displaying anti-social behaviour.
Last night Conservative MP Andrew Griffiths, who is chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This ridiculous idea would be a bureaucratic nightmare and would be totally unenforceable.
‘It would make life incredibly difficult for publicans who are already having to deal with the consequences of people pre-loading with supermarket drink, and would be another nail in the coffin of the pub industry.
‘The night-time economy is already struggling but this could spell the end of people getting a round in.’
Mr Letchford said police also want bouncers to patrol areas around pubs and clubs to prevent after-hours fights breaking out in taxi queues or outside takeaway restaurants.
And they are trying to stop bouncers throwing drunk customers out on to the street and leaving police and paramedics to deal with them. Instead, police want to encourage ‘collective responsibility’, to stop pubs and clubs saying an incident wasn’t their fault if it happened outside their doors, even though their clientele had been involved.
Mr Letchford also rubbished a proposal by fellow police chiefs to leave people to sober up in city centre ‘drunk-tanks’ – on the grounds it would be a ‘medical risk’ and give out the wrong impression.
‘You don’t want to create a safety net where people think it’s OK to go out and binge-drink, then we pick them up. There has to be a consequence for their behaviour,’ he said.
‘Another nail in the coffin
for the pub industry’