Woman, 20, is banned from buying alcohol nationwide

Woman, 20, is banned from buying alcohol nationwide

A young woman has become the first person to be completely banned from buying alcohol nationwide.
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent Published: 8:25PM BST 15 Apr 2010

Laura Hall, 20, has been barred from drinking at every pub, club and hotel in England and Wales. She is also prohibited from purchasing alcohol at shops, supermarkets and off-licenses, under the terms of a drinking banning order, police said.

Officers have repeatedly had to deal with Miss Hall’s antisocial behaviour in her home town of Bromsgrove, Worcs. Photographs released yesterday showed her swigging from a bottle of white wine on a train, and drinking shots of spirits.

Sgt David Roberts, of West Mercia police, said the order would protect the public in Bromsgrove and added that he hoped it would give the 20-year-old binge drinker an opportunity to “get her life back on track”.

The order for a drinking banning order (DBO) was made at Kidderminster Magistrates' Court, and will last until April 2012.

Miss Hall will also be sent on an alcohol-misuse course to try to help her curb her problem.

She faces a £2,500 fine if she is caught breaching the strict conditions. DBOs were introduced by the Home Office in September 2009 as a measure to prevent individuals who are causing alcohol-related disorder from entering specified licensed premises.

Miss Hall had already been excluded from local licensed premises through the pub-watch scheme.

Sgt Roberts said: "While there have been some drinking banning orders issued already since their introduction last year, this is the first to be issued on a nationwide basis and it effectively bans Laura Hall from drinking or buying alcohol in any licensed premises across the whole of England and Wales.

"We chose to use this new legislation as a way of helping address Laura's offending behaviour, and we very much hope that rather than seeing it as a punishment, she will use it as an opportunity to get her life back on track.

"The conditions of the order will also help to protect the public in Bromsgrove and the surrounding area from the anti-social effects of Laura's behaviour and we hope they will feel reassured to learn this DBO is in place."

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Does anyone else think this is a little excessive? I think it's a very extreme measure against potential alcoholism, and I can see this becoming more and more common. Now that the precedent has been set, I can see families applying for alcohol bans on family members and friends.

[edit on 20-4-2010 by SerialLurker]

I honestly don't see this ban doing anything. There's bound to be a ton of people out there that can help her get her drink on. But that's just my opinion.

As someone who has seen many lives ruined by alcoholism, no I don't think this is excessive in the least. It is no more an infringement of personal rights than that of a drivers license revocation. Your personal freedom ends when you impinge upon others lives and safety.

I am mildly curious as to how exactly they plan on enforcing this though. Sure every pub owner and bartender in the nation has seen her photo, but a little hair dye and makeup can take care of that. Nor does it provide for friends or relatives purchasing it for her to drink at home, from what I can see.

No I think it's appropriate. That'll teach her a lesson.
You say "oh do you think it's excessive" yet you're the same person that will be mysteriously absent and not commenting when next week she kills an innocent pregnant woman in a DUI hit and run or something like that.

As a recovering alcoholic, I can assure you that if she wants to drink, she WILL find a way. Ban or no ban.

If she wanted alcohol..she can just make it herself..Honey mead..is awesome and easy to make

I read this and I think it parallels getting banned from driving if you violate the law too many times behind the wheel of a car. Same to me as getting your license taken away after so many offenses. I don't think it's completely wrong. A new way of handling things so I'm weary about it but not completely against it.

I agree that it is going to be very easy for her to get alcohol. I guess the ban is all well and good but the practical level, this enforcing this is going to be near impossible.

Wow...

First time I've heard of someone getting banned from buying booze everywhere.

I've know guys who got banned from bars because of drunken idiocy, but this takes the cake!

Seriously though, I'm with the other posters on this one. She will still get alcohol if she really wants to. The ban won't stop her.

This poor girl needs to be in therapy and rehab. She is obviously an alcoholic.

reply to post by zombiemann


it is excessive, and i'll tell ya why. i had brainstem encephalitis (which eventually put me in a coma on total life support) and didn't know it. my mind became increasingly more distressed. i couldn't sleep without help, so i began to drink. prior to that, i hadn't drank in over 20 years, and even then, i was only a social drinker. but the encephalitis created a state in which i could no longer think straight due to all the fear generated by paranoia, which was itself, generated by the onset of the encephalitis.

i went to the doctor several times, and they couldn't isolate the problem. so there was no diagnosis to support the idea that i was drinking like a fish suddenly because otherwise, i couldn't exist inside my own head due to all the strangeness occuring there.

so i'm gonna suggest that further ostracizing that person may be the entirely wrong way of fixing the problem. it could be that she has some underlying medical condition that is exacerbating it, such as a mental disorder, a hormonal disorder, an infection, mycoplasma, even candida albicans is known to cause cravings for alcohol.

if they were that concerned about her, they'd get her some high rate medical attention, pronto.


[edit on 20-4-2010 by undo]

I dont support this at all. If I lived there I'd buy for her. I just hope she doesnt turn to harder substances as a result of this.

take away her drivers license if you think she'll kill someone driving, but she should be free to put whatever she wants in her body. period.

and why dont they just give her an ankle bracelet which can test the skin for alcohol? that seems way easier than a nationwide ban!

reply to post by undo


Whoa, very weird. But I agree that it might be something else causing her to drink and act in this way. I want to know what and where her friends (presumably she doesn't go out and drink by herself...maybe she does?) were when she was behaving in an antisocial manner, if they were as intoxicated as her, why weren't they also banned? If one friend is behaving inappropriately, chances are, if her/his friends are also at a similar level of intoxication, they are going to join in on the stupidity

reply to post by SerialLurker


possibly. i know when i was going threw it, hubby was not a drinker, but he would occassionally have a beer or something with me. he was worried that i was having a mid life crisis, when in fact, i had a mycoplasmic version of encephalitis, caused by gulf war syndrome.

doctors didn't know what to look for because mycoplasms use your cells (since they have no cell wall of their own) and masquerade as a normal cell function. it requires special tests to even discover their existence, not too far removed from the tests for lymes disease.

the common denominator being tick borne diseases, which accounts possibly for the encephalitis, as hubby was given a japanese tick borne encephalitis vaccine during the gulf war (i don't think they killed the buggers before they shot them into his arm!). he became a carrier of it, and transmitted it to me, not realizing he was carrying around a deadly disease that he was immune to himself. that thing killed alot of vets and their families. nearly killed me. it's a miracle i'm even here today.

everyone who knew me thought i was having a mid life crisis and had lost my "religion." sigh. people seriously don't know enough about diseases related to the brain. as a result, folks suffering from such things, get labelled any number of derogatory things and end up exhibiting definite anti-social behavior. it's not like they are doing these things on purpose. it just needs medicine and knowledge. good grief, charlie brown.

reply to post by Totalstranger


If she were staying home and not being a nuisance, I would agree with you. But she is impacting other peoples lives. Apparently becoming 'antisocial'. I read this to mean being belligerent and otherwise a pain in the backside. This is effecting more people than just her.

reply to post by Totalstranger


you can get false positives for alcohol consumption just by having a severe candida infection. some people with bad candida blood infections, only have to eat a piece of food with yeast in it, to get staggering drunk.

If you think that is bad, many communities in the north of Canada have either total or partial alcohol bans. In some places people need approval from the council before placing orders to the store for alcohol...

Nunatsiaq News

Nunatsiaq News Article 2

Magnum

How could that even be enforced as the various establishments nation-wide? How do they know NOT to sell alcohol to her? WIll they get fined if they do?
Excessive or not, I don't see how it could ever be enforced...there's just too many places to buy/get booze...and if she really wants it, she will get a hold of it.

QueenBob

im sure the ban will be side stepped on one level or another.

why not just give her an ASBO with parameters surrounding her being sober.

this thread did make me impulse buy some cider when i poped to the shop...

glad i can still buy it lolz

glug glug.............hic

i swear i have a unusual ability to kill threads dead

sorry op

It's not just you, I seem to kill them pretty quickly as well.

So we seem to have a consensus that if she wants booze, she will get it. But not as many as I expected to see in opposition. Maybe there is some common sense on ATS after all.