Lager loutettes 'fuel pub violence'

Binge drinking among women is helping fuel the surge in alcohol-related violence on our streets, David Blunkett said yesterday.

The Home Secretary spoke of the rise of what he called 'lager loutettes' - young women who increasingly rival men in alcohol consumption and drunken antics.

He said it was transforming Britain's pub culture and contributing to the 'thuggery and intimidation' linked to heavy drinking.

Instead of helping to calm situations as they once did and discouraging men from fighting, he said young women were increasingly part of the problem.

Mr Blunkett's warning comes ahead of worrying crime figures due out this week which will show violent offences rising sharply - for the fifth year in a row.

Violent crime in England and Wales leapt by 12 per cent last year, to just over 1.1million offences. Out of 43 police forces, all but six recorded increases. And nine faced alarming rises of 30 per cent or more.

Overall recorded crime rose just over 1 per cent to 5.97million offences.

The figures will raise fresh questions over the Government's law-and-order credentials, and add to pressure on Mr Blunkett to achieve real inroads against street violence. Police are struggling to cope with the explosion in the number of pubs and bars attracting revellers to city centres, where violence and anti-social behaviour is creating 'no-go areas'.

Yesterday Mr Blunkett admitted heavy drinking was causing a culture of 'thuggery and intimidation' in the worst-affected areas.

He said 'lager loutettes' were a particular concern, with the number of women drinking more than the prescribed safe limit of 21 units a week rising sharply.

While there is little evidence as yet that women are taking part in violence, he said the trend was changing the culture of pubs.

'They may be the ones to countenance violence rather than calm it,' he said. 'It is not chauvinistic to say the presence of women has often been a calming influence, in terms of young men starting to lay about each other.'

Tory home affairs spokesman David Davis said it was 'absurd' to blame women drinkers for failing to prevent violence by men. He said: 'Women don't go out at night to police bars and clubs. They go out to enjoy themselves.

'The Government has simply run out of ideas, and is blaming everyone else for the problem.'

Britain has the highest levels of female binge-drinking in Europe and the antics of 'ladettes' such as radio DJs Zoe Ball and Sara Cox have been blamed for encouraging women to drink to excess.

An epidemic of cocaine abuse is threatening the health of a generation. A Health Service study shows the number of users has almost tripled in only seven years.

Nearly a quarter of suspected drug users test positive for the drug, which is linked to heart attacks and memory loss. This compares with just one in ten in 1997.

The study, published in the journal Forensic Science International, shows cocaine is increasingly becoming the drug of choice of the middle-classes.

Doctors say cocaine is seen by users as a 'mild' recreational drug, when in reality it is a class A substance which has serious and long-lasting health effects.