IT WAS 4pm on a Friday afternoon and 12-year-old Nick was bored. He had finished school hours ago and there was nothing to do at home. The youngster rang his two best friends on his mobile phone and arranged to meet for a drinking session.
Providing shelter from the rain and away from prying adult eyes, an underpass in Deans, Livingston, was popular with teenagers wanting to indulge in some illegal fun.
And Nick was no exception.
Since launching "Operation Floorsweep", a revolut
ionary new approach to under-age drinking last September, police in West Lothian have caught about 120 teenagers under the age of 16 drinking .
The majority of the youths have been aged between 13 to 15, with three aged 12.
Last Friday, 15 teenagers, the oldest 15, the youngest 12-year-old Nick (not his real name), were found drinking alcohol – including Buckfast, Mad Dog 20/20 and vodka – in various areas around Livingston.
Nick and his friends, who were drinking a mixture of cherry cola, vodka and cider, were spotted by three plain-clothes policemen, tipped off that the underpass had become a hot spot for teenage drinkers.
At 8pm in a brightly-lit interview room, with a family member by his side, the 12-year-old admits this is not the first time he has been drinking .
"I've been p***** several times before – about four or five times I guess."
He said that his tipple of choice was a drink called Mad Dog 20/20 – a violent-coloured "raspberry flavoured grape wine- based drink" with a 13 per cent alcohol content which can be picked up at most licensed shops for £4.99 for a 75cl bottle.
"The last time I drank that was a few weeks ago. I guess I drank quite a lot. I don't really remember much about that evening. I know I did daft stuff and started fighting my friends but that's all I remember."
He said he drank simply because he was "bored" and because his friends did the same.
"It's peer pressure probably which makes me do it as well," he added.
And where did he get the alcohol? "Friends just get it, I guess," he said.
The chief inspector at Livingston police station, Jim Baird, then speaks to Nick trying to make him realise drinking at such a young age is not just against the law, but is putting him at risk from attacks, as well as causing lasting damage to his brain and liver.
Bringing under-age drinkers and their families to the police station for interview is a key part of Operation Floorsweep. As well as being spoken to by West Lothian Drug and Alcohol Services, a referral is also made to social services.
By early evening on Friday night, the reception area at Livingston police station is bustling with parents who have come to collect their offspring.
The first to be picked up was 14-year-old "James", who was taken to the station at 4pm. Using the £10 his mother had given him to go to the cinema he stood outside a Livingston off- licence and asked a stranger if they would buy him a bottle of Buckfast. Unfortunately for him, the man he chose to ask was a plain-clothes police officer who knew that youngsters were asking adults to buy them booze.
Shortly afterwards the patrol picks up a girl and two boys aged 14 and 15 huddled in a makeshift den swigging 15 per cent proof Buckfast tonic wine.
They are taken to the police station, swiftly followed by two 15-year-olds who have been found drinking their way through a crate of beer and singing loudly in a wooded area of the town.
The chief inspector said that most parents were mortified when they came to collect their children.
"In general the parents are shocked to find their offspring have been drinking. But the majority of them see it as a really positive thing that we are doing and use it as a wake-up call for both them and their kids that something needs to change."
The mother of one under-age drinker picked up on Friday said: "I'm totally shocked but I'm also very grateful to the police for picking him up. At least now we can both go home and talk about this and work out where we go from here."
Phil Hanlon, a professor of public health at Glasgow University, said that if children as young as 12 started drinking habitually then they could be dead within five years.
"Since the 1990s, there has been an epidemic, a massive rise in alcohol consumption, and the largest rise is the younger age group – and this is starting as young as 12.
"It is the death rate within this group that we are most concerned about.
"The reality is that if you drink heavily you can kill yourself in from anything between five to 15 years. And if a 12-year-old starts drinking heavily then it is not impossible that they wouldn't get past their teenage years because their liver would simply pack up. If that happens you die."
Last week it emerged that 87 out of 632 off-licences tested had sold alcohol to volunteers who were under-age. In the Lothian and Borders area, 17 out of 51 premises visited had supplied alcohol – a rate of 33 per cent.
While officers in Livingston were tracking down under-age drinkers, a separate team from "Operation Froth" were busy with a "test purchase" operation – to see if several licensed shops would sell a 16-year-old volunteer alcohol.
That night a shop in West Calder failed the test and the under-age teenager managed to buy a vodka-based drink called Blue Wicked costing £2.99.
The shop keeper and licensee will both be charged.
Chief Inspector Baird said: "We don't try and pretend that under-age drinking never happened when we were young but it was more beer and cider at parties where an adult was usually present.
"But the pattern of behaviour has changed. These days teenagers drink fortified wines and neat vodka and drink on the streets or pathways."
"Alcohol is cheap – in some places cheaper than bottled water – so it's much more affordable to youngsters."
At the end of the night, having poured the alcohol they took from the teenagers down the drain, Steven Duncan, temporary sergeant in the community department at Livingston police station, who was instrumental in setting up "Operation Floorsweep, surveys the empty bottles – a collection of Buckfast, Mad Dog 20/20, beer and soft-drink bottles which had contained vodka.
"It's about an average night," he said.
"What we are trying to do is not only catch teenagers drinking under-age, but reassure the public that we are doing something about it."
TARGETING TEENAGE DRINKERSMINISTERS in Australia this week took drastic action to curb the rise in teenage drinking with a 70 per cent increase in tax on alcopops.
Health minister Nicola Roxon said the Australian government was particularly concerned about the increase in the number of girls who were drinking to excess.
She said: "They're full of sugar and marketed so you can't particularly taste the alcohol. We've seen an explosion in their consumption by young people and we want to turn that around.
"Young people are price-sensitive and if that means this is a deterrent, it will be a successful measure."
In the UK there has been some discussion of a tax on alcopops. But although the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, ended the freeze on the tax on spirits this year, he did not specifically target drinks associated with underage drinkers.
However, the Tories say they will target teenage drinking with a special tax.
Under their proposals a £2 can of super-strength beer would rise in price to £2.38, while a £1.25 litre of strong cider would rise to £1.66. Alcopops costing around £1.25 a bottle would cost £1.79.
The full article contains 1355 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
