Drink,
Drugs and Driving
Throughout the 2011 festive period Cheshire Constabulary highlighted
the dangers of excessive drinking and the impact it can have on
people having a night out. 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' campaign
delivered hard hitting messages and gave safety advice to hundreds
of people over the Cheshire period.
The Bad news for those people who didn′t heed the advice of the
police and put themselves and others at risk through alcohol, the
next few weeks will be a worrying time as they face the consequences
of their actions.
The national campaign to tackle drink and drug driving took place
between the 1st of December and 1st of January. During the campaign
188 people were arrested for drink and drug driving offences. Out
of the 188 arrests 7 people were arrested for drug driving.
Assistant Chief Constable Janette McCormick commented:
"People are not listening, they are not accepting that excessive
drinking can cause Bad and often Ugly behaviour. This can be evidenced
by the number of alcohol related anti-social behaviour incidents
recorded over the festive period."
This year when compared to the same period last year saw incidents
of anti-social behaviour that have alcohol as an influencing factor
rise to 692. The impact this has on resources within the emergency
services is huge.
In Cheshire, officers where called to deal with drunken brawls,
disputes that erupted on the street, drunks who were passed out,
domestics that had escalated because those involved had been drinking
and on top of dealing with these incidents officers and staff were
investigating crimes where victims and offenders had little or
no recollection of what had happened because of the amount they
have had to drink.
"The Ugly truth is that some people are
still not getting the message about the dangers associated with
excessive drinking. They need to understand the damage alcohol
can do to their bodies, the dangers and risks it posses on our
streets, how it influences themselves and others around them as
well as how they can be at risk of becoming a victim of crime."
"This is a problem that we face all year round, the emergency
services can not pack away their Christmas memories as officers
and staff will face the same problems on the streets this Friday
and Saturday night where alcohol is the root cause of many of the
incidents and crimes they will be called to deal with this weekend,
my question to those who are reading this is − is this acceptable?"
JANE THIRSK
Watch Officer
Cheshire Police
Macclesfield Neighbourhood Policing Team 0845 458 6371
Police non-emergency number: 101
Other Homewatch pages of current relevance: Briefs (recent
crimes in the Macclesfield Division including Bollington, Kerridge
and Pott Shrigley).
If you haven't looked at the homewatch pages before we recommend
looking at the homewatch home page.
