Drink drive stoppers

Members of the public were offered up to £500 for informing on drinkers who use their cars during the Christmas holiday period - an extension of an initiative on the part of a police officer with a mission to combat drink driving.

The scheme, when it was piloted in Lancashire, brought 80 calls from the public resulting in 29 convictions. It has now been adopted by the Lancashire and Cumbria forces. Financial inducement related only to Christmas and New Year - there was no reward involved in the trial or in the wider application off the scheme.

A spokesman said, "We believe that people might think twice about drinking and driving if they are aware that someone may notice them and report them."

The idea originated with PC Robert Beeston, stationed at Chorley. He had extensive experience with drink drivers and had noticed that the pattern of arrest had changed over time. "Ten years ago," he said, "arresting a drink driver was relatively easy. All I had to do was park near a public house from 11.30 pm onwards and stop a few vehicles. It was almost guaranteed to produce results." There are far fewer drinkers in those pubs nowadays, according to PC Beeston, but there were still a high number of drink-related accidents. "I found that I was arresting people for drinking and driving in the afternoon and early evening rather than late at night."

A number of incidents, including the arrest, for the third time, of a middle-aged woman who was found to be considerably over the limit, driving through the town centre during the afternoon, prompted PC Beeston to come up with a scheme to reduce road accidents and prevent death and injury. He set up Drink Line, a confidential answer phone service where members of the public could leave information about drink drivers. The main targets were persistent drink drivers who are often difficult to detect unless they are involved in an accident. Through the local press and radio, PC Beeston made sure that the public were aware of the scheme. The information received was of a high quality. Suspects were allocated to particular officers who had special responsibility for targeting them. Only a very few of those who were stopped under the scheme were found not to have consumed alcohol. Those who registered amber on the breath testing equipment and therefore were not over the limit on that particular occasion despite having drunk alcohol, will be stopped at some future date and tested again.

Some of those stopped under the scheme proved to have very high readings. One was a repeat offender who subsequently received a custodial sentence. Another was a taxi driver who had been injecting heroin whilst working.

PC Beeston's Drink Line has now been handed over to Crime Stoppers and extends over all of Lancashire and, in a modified form, Cumbria. As Crime Stoppers is a national number (0800 555 111), the scheme could be extended to the whole country, depending on the attitudes of the Chief Constables.