Police Federation: Not an overnight success

The chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales says that more police officers have to work at night to deal with around the clock drinking and calls for licensing responsibility to be taken away from local authorities that are more interested in revenue gathering.

Jan Berry claims that 24 hour licensing merely extends "the hours that trouble spills on to the streets", pulling police away from daytime policing and leading to increasing police injury levels.

Daytime policing is now "being left to Community Support Officers without the necessary powers, training or equipment to provide the level of crime prevention, deterrent and detection the public deserve", she claims.

She noted that local authorities have a conflict of interest in making licensing decisions.

"On the one hand they want to clamp down on any drinking establishments that continually cause problems and result in increased anti-social behaviour and disorder.

"On the other hand, they make vast sums of revenue from many of these larger pub and club chains. It would therefore be far more sensible to put the licensing decision back into the hands of independent magistrates," she said.