Wednesday, June 18, 2008

What's wrong with this picture?

... which the Sun has used to illustrate its latest "drunk teens" scare?

Of course, it it had been taken on behalf of the Mirror, the photographer wouldn't just have managed to open the booze for her - he'd have taken her order for the offy-trip in the first place, as this story in the current Eye - the lead in Street of Shame, don't you know - demonstrates:

“A vow to curb teenage drinkers was exposed as a sham yesterday with figures showing kids go unpunished,” declared the Mirror last Saturday. “In the past three years, only 34 children have been prosecuted for buying booze. And just seven landlords got the top £1,000 fine for selling booze to underage drinkers.”

Curiously, the paper chose to overlook another shining example of the law going easy on an adult who supplied booze to children. Just one day previously a 28-year-old journalist from the South West News Service agency had accepted a caution from Avon and Somerset Police for giving cider and alcopops to a group of 16-year-olds in Bristol, so that they could pose for a series of photographs intended to illustrate an article on underage drinking for… the Mirror. The hapless hack told the youngsters they were welcome to hold on to the booze when the shoot was finished – and several of them went on to be involved later that night in what police describe as “a serious disorder incident” which resulted in a teenager being left in a coma for several weeks.

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