Under-age drinkers were caught with the equivalent of 6,500 pints of alcohol during a four week drive to curb teenage drinking, the Home Office announced today.

But the true figure for teenaged drinking is much greater as the operation only focused on 21 specific areas within particular police forces in England and Wales.

Officers in the 21 basic command units - effectively local police districts - confiscated more than 3,700 litres of beer, wine, cider, spirits and alcopops from under 18s drinking in public places.

The four week Home Office funded campaign took place from October 8 to November 5 and focused on weekends, the half term school holiday, Halloween and Bonfire Night.

Police officers and police community support officers targeted areas of the country with known probles with underage drinking including Swansea, Sunderland, part of Sheffield, the Medway area of Kent, Bury in Lancashire, Plymouth in Devon, south Liverpool and Croydon and Waltham Forest in London.

Overall 6,227 children were approached by the police during the campaign, of whom the overwhelming majority youths.

More than 3,700 litres of beer, cider, wine and spirits were seized plus 280 bottles of alcopops and 340 fireworks.

Plymouth in Devon topped the league table for litres of alcohol seized on 546, followed by Sheffield on 348, south Liverpool on 315, western Lancashire on 224, Swansea in south Wales on 219, Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent in south Wales on 217, and Stockton on Tees on 208.

Vernon Coaker, a Home Office minister, said there would be further campaign to tackle under age drinking.

Mr Coaker said: “This campaign was designed to bring to bear the full range of police tools and powers to tackle the harm caused to individuals and communities by underage drinking. It will not be the last.

“Quite simply we will not tolerate drinking in public by under-18s or anyone else where it leads to anti-social and intimidating behaviour. Confiscation complements our efforts to tackle the supply of alcohol to children.”

Mr Coaker said that the enforcement of under age sales law had hardened dramatically in recent years and that many alcohol retailers have raised their game and now routinely challenge people trying to buy alcohol who look under 18.

Chris Allison, a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “This campaign was one of a number that have been undertaken to deal with the negative effects of alcohol.

“Significant work has been done on the issue of underage sales and this campaign sought to use the tactic of confiscation to help prevent the drink-fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour that we witness up and down the country.”

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