About 4am last Thursday, a mob of 200 alcohol-sodden youths gathered outside the Sabotage nightclub on the Greek island of Zakynthos ready for action. Two men were squaring up for a fight. One, a Scouser, had apparently shouted a racist remark at the other, a 6ft 4in black bodybuilder, and it seemed as if things were about to kick off.

Suddenly the black man jumped onto a quad-bike and drove into the crowd, apparently trying to run over his adversary. Bodies went sprawling. Within minutes sirens were blaring and four Greek police officers were wrestling the 19-year-old rider to the ground before carting him off in handcuffs. An ambulance took a teenage girl to hospital.

Elsewhere that night in the popular holiday resort of Laganas, a drunken youth stripped to his underwear and jumped on a car bonnet, drawing roars of approval from his friends, while a young woman hitched up her skirt in the middle of the road to have a henna tattoo painted on her bottom.

Around them, couples barely coherent after downing cheap cocktails – sometimes laced with industrial alcohol – groped each other in public, while others retired to the beach to have sex. “This place is full of girls that are well fit,” said Christopher Duff, 21, an electrician from north Wales. “Four slutty girls have moved into the hotel with us and I intend to sleep with all of them by the end of the holiday. We’ve heard about the reputation of the place and that’s why we’ve come here.”

It was just another night on Zakynthos, also known as Zante, a once-tranquil haven for endangered turtles that is now flooded by thousands of Brits behaving badly. Similar scenes of debauchery are played out across the Ionian Sea at the resort of Malia on Crete, where street brawls have involved hundreds of holidaymakers, and scores of women are reported to request the morning-after pill each day.

In the wake of previous party trouble-spots such as Ayia Napa in Cyprus and Fali-raki on Rhodes, Laganas and Malia have become the modern-day versions of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their lewd and violent excesses, combined with a record number of reported rapes in Greece this year, have now sparked a backlash.

Simon Gass, the British ambassador to Athens, recently flew to Zakynthos to see the carnage for himself and to reassure local officials. And Dionisis Komiotis, the mayor of Laganas, has decided enough is enough. “We don’t want the young people to walk out naked, to cause problems and damage,” he said. “We don’t want them to annoy the rest of the guests and tourists and, of course, put their own lives in danger.”

The authorities are launching the biggest crackdown the island has seen, with alcohol targeted as public enemy number one. “Every day I am sending officers into Laganas to protect young people,” the local police chief told The Sunday Times last week. At least that’s the rhetoric. But given the money at stake and the notoriety of Brits abroad, is anything likely to change? EVER since the Spanish resorts of the Costa del Sol opened their doors, British tourists have been travelling abroad in search of sun, sand and sex. What has taken the problems to new depths, say critics, is the proliferation of cheap flights. This summer a week in Laganas, including flights and accommodation, could be booked for as little as £200.

“The prices of these holidays aren’t vastly different from what they were 15 years ago,” said Dr Arthur Cassidy, a social psychologist specialising in youth and tourism. “Where once it was twentysome-things from more affluent backgrounds who enjoyed these holidays during their student years, cheap prices and credit cards mean teens and those on low incomes can afford to jet off too.

“There’s a far more diverse demographic all mixed together in these resorts – and that’s when trouble can start.”

A Foreign Office report last week revealed that the number of Britons arrested at 15 popular holiday destinations had increased by almost 16% in a year to 4,603. The report stated: “Many arrests are due to behaviour caused by excessive drinking.”

Greece and its islands, which are visited by more than 3m British tourists each year, had the second highest number of people admitted to hospital (602 cases). More worrying were figures released by the Greek police for rapes: 41 British women this summer, a record number only halfway through the holiday season.

The real numbers may be even higher. Dr Andreas Renessis, at the state hospital in Zakynthos, said: “We deal with a lot of allegations of rape, but often we cannot find any signs of resistance. The girls get drunk, go back to the hotels with the men and then they want to say no. I cannot say this is rape.”

Cheap booze, agrees the British ambassador to Greece, lies at the “back of a lot of accidents and incidents”. And it’s not hard to see why. The main thoroughfare of Laganas is lined with bars and clubs with names like Boozerz, Sizzlers and Rescue. Outside another, Cocktails and Dreams, Matthew Cryer, a 17-year-old from Sheffield, choked on his vomit and died after a night of drinking last month.

Some venues employ handsome reps offering free drinks to lure women tourists off the street. In other bars, a £4 cocktail is accompanied by up to three free shots. Notorious “fishbowl” cocktails offer a large potent mixture of spirits for about £8. Such drinks are sometimes known as “bombs” because, as one local doctor explained, “they cause an explosion in your brain”.

Dr Fey Saliba, who has run a private clinic in Laganas for 12 years, said: “People are getting drunk not just because of the quantity of alcohol, but because of the quality. They come to see me because they are still dizzy the next morning, they have stomach complaints and headaches.

“Some say they have drunk 20 or more shots, but often their symptoms are so severe it appears the drinks have been fortified. It is a very dangerous thing.” Saliba, who treats about 10 British tourists a night, also claimed that British barmen deliberately plied young women with free drinks so that they could sleep with them later.

“They will have sex with two or three women a night at the weekend, perhaps seven on an average week,” he said.

The police say they are now clamping down. Last Thursday Commander Bastas Nicolaos, the police chief of Zakynthos, said his officers were stopping bars from offering free drinks and serving underage tourists. He is also deploying plainclothes officers who have been nicknamed “bomb disposal squads”. “We have been testing [for industrial alcohol] and we will have those results through soon,” said Nicolaos. “The owners of the clubs will face prison if we get positive results. Such behaviour will not be tolerated on the island.”

The Foreign Office has also launched a campaign to encourage British youths to behave more responsibly. Using the same crude language as its target audience, the campaign’s catchline is: “Don’t be a Dick.” In messages printed on beer mats, beach-balls and posters, Brits are advised not to “get lairy with the locals” and not to let “a drunken stunt ruin your holiday”. WITH holidaymakers determined to have fun, however, and bar owners determined to make money, the chances of change look slim. Even the police chief’s own staff seem ambivalent about bad behaviour. At the rundown police station at Laganas, one young officer said: “If British people want to get into fights, why should the police care? As long as the trouble doesn’t spread to the rest of the island, the senior [police chiefs] don’t seem worried.”

Indeed, the bodybuilding quad-biker from the Sabotage nightclub was released without charge, although one of his victims was taken to hospital.

Nicolaos refused to say how many British tourists have been arrested under his watch this year.

“We do not think they have done anything too serious,” he said. “We will take them to the police station and make sure they can provide their passport and papers, but then they can go. We want to protect our English guests. We believe they are good people and, of course, it helps our economy.”

Therein lies the crux of the problem: the Greek islands need tourists, although officials would prefer it if they were more upmarket.

And UK holiday companies seem happy to meet the demands of customers more interested in booze than beaches.

Club 18-30, one of Britain’s biggest youth tour operators, promotes Zakynthos as follows: “Laganas – because you’ve got the rest of your life to sort a pension.” On its website last week two of the six reps operating in Zakynthos boasted: “I’m always pissed.” A third member of the team admitted having taken drugs. The company removed the “inappropriate” information after being contacted by The Sunday Times.

Nor did the holidaymakers in Laganas last week seem at all deterred by the authorities’ efforts to curb the excesses.

“I’ve been here eight hours and we’re already out on the pull,” said James Roland, 19, a builder from Cardiff, last week. “I’m having an absolutely cracking time and there’s loads of skirt, girls everywhere. I’m here to have a laugh with my mates – but if I get laid, it’s a bonus. It’s much more lively than Cardiff.”

Becky Askens, 20, an administrator from Northampton on the island with two female friends, said: “It’s awesome.

When we go into a club we’re given four free shots and then we can get two cocktails for €8, also with free shots.” She added, perhaps more in hope than reality: “We don’t want to get paralytic; we just want to have a good time.”

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