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Young People: Alcoholic Drinks

Volume 468: debated on Monday 26 November 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many penalty notices for disorder in relation to the sale of alcohol to a person under 18 years of age were issued in each police force area in England and Wales in each year since 2004; how many of these resulted in an unpaid fine in each area; and what the average level of fine was in each year. (165811)

The information requested on the number of penalty notices for disorder issued for selling alcohol to persons under-18 is provided in the following table.

This offence attracts a penalty notice for disorder (PND) of £80. The offence was added to the PND scheme on 1 November 2004. Failure to pay the penalty or request a court hearing within 21 days, results in a fine of one-and-half times the penalty amount, in this case £120, being registered by the court. Data on the number of PNDs issued and fine registered for 2004 and 2005 are also provided in the table; data for 2006 will be available shortly.

The number of penalty notices for disorder issued for offences related to the illegal sale of alcohol to persons aged under-181, 2

Penalty notices for disorder issued

Penalty notices for disorder fine registered

Police force area

2004

2005

2004

2005

Avon and Somerset

56

4

Bedfordshire

2

Cambridgeshire

11

Cheshire

49

2

Cleveland

33

1

Cumbria

23

Derbyshire

8

1

Devon and Cornwall

82

7

Dorset

22

22

2

Durham

Essex

7

120

6

Gloucestershire

42

5

Greater Manchester

127

22

Hampshire

2

67

1

7

Hertfordshire

3

Humberside

2

45

3

Kent

10

6

Lancashire

30

190

1

22

Leicestershire

2

46

4

Lincolnshire

26

1

Merseyside

2

73

15

Metropolitan Police

21

161

3

16

Norfolk

North Yorkshire

Northamptonshire

1

39

4

Northumbria

1

48

1

3

Nottinghamshire

9

117

17

South Yorkshire

2

107

9

Staffordshire

19

1

Suffolk

19

1

Surrey

Sussex

63

2

Thames Valley

12

Warwickshire

3

1

West Mercia

1

22

1

West Midlands

6

114

2

13

West Yorkshire

4

72

11

Wiltshire

8

1

Dyfed-Powys

18

Gwent

20

2

North Wales

1

58

10

South Wales

123

13

England and Wales

113

2,058

10

211

1 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 2 PND data covers the offence of sale of alcohol to person under-18 under the Licensing Act 2003 S126. Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Ministry of Justice.