Whitsun purge on young drinkers

A POLICE crackdown on under-age drinkers who tried to smuggle alcohol into villages ahead of Whit Friday’s Saddleworth Brass Band Contests was hailed a success. 

FOILED: Police Officers confiscated alcohol from underage drinkers
FOILED: Police Officers confiscated alcohol from underage drinkers

Under the mantle of Operation Gateway, officers travelled on buses heading towards villages and confiscated ‘significant’ qualities of alcohol, seizing more throughout the evening.

Our picture shows PC Dave Pickles, Neighbourhood beat officer, Saddleworth South with PCSO Lee Lockwood of Saddleworth South and PC Mark Clough, Neighbourhood beat officer, Saddleworth North, with just a small proportion of the hundreds of cans, bottles and packs of alcohol taken off teenagers.

Chief Superintendent Catherine Hankinson, Commander of GMP’s Oldham Division, who prepared the low key operation across the 12 villages, said small groups of 15 and 16-year-olds had been caught.

She said: “In one case, a group of under-age drinkers had 48 cans of beer, six bottles of spirits and selection of alco-pops. These were immediately confiscated.”

Ch Supt Hankinson said there were 13 arrests – 12 drink and disorderly offences and one for a drug related offence.

All the arrests took place in Uppermill with no trouble reported at any of the other village contests.

The Ch Supt went on: “Most of the arrests were made before 10pm. Consequently, this nipped any potential trouble in the bud.

CONTESTS: Bands performing at Friezland
CONTESTS: Bands performing at Friezland

“A number of people under the influence of alcohol were served a ‘direction to leave’ order which meant they were told to leave the area and were not permitted to return for a set time period.

“Four deviated from that, returned to the villages and they were arrested.

She added: “Four hundred youngsters had gathered in Uppermill park in the evening, but floodlights helped mounted officers to simply walk the crowd out of the park without any problems.

“We wanted it to be truly brilliant, family-fun day for Saddleworth and it was for the vast majority of spectators and competitors.

“The small few who were out to spoilt things were dealt with.”

The police operated a ‘Stay Safe’ unit – for youngsters who were the worse for wear and needed to be returned to their parents – and there were extra buses from Uppermill to get people home.

This year brass band contests provided their own traffic-trained stewards with police monitoring events.

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