Public safety can no longer be guaranteed because of rocketing alcohol-fuelled violence, said a senior officer.
Inspector Ian Hanson said continental-style licensing since 2005 had led to chaos ‘spiralling out of control’. Offenders are now being allowed off the hook because there are too many violent incidents and too few officers because of budget cuts, he said.
Unsafe: Continental-style licensing laws
implemented in 2005 had led to chaos 'spiralling out of control' in
places like the aptly named Shambles Square in central Manchester
Dr Dominic Henry, 32, had started a conversation with strangers Alan Croydon and Arron Buckley as he waited to get a cab home but was suddenly punched to the ground before being kicked up to 15 times as he lay defenceless.
Labour talked of bringing a peaceful 'café culture' to the UK when it introduced round-the-clock opening in late 2005.
But many towns and cities are now blighted by booze-fuelled thuggish behaviour with trouble ranges from fighting and drug dealing to pick pocketing and street robbery.
Insp Hanson, 47, said he would no longer go into central Manchester late at night when the weekend drinking culture is in full swing at the city’s 300 pubs, bars and nightclubs.
Chaos: Offenders are now being allowed off the
hook because there are too many violent alcohol-related incidents in the
city centre, said Manchester police's Ian Hanson
‘We have got the fastest-growing night-time economy outside London with a new bar opening every weekend. There are a quarter of a million people coming into the city centre to enjoy themselves every weekend.
‘But at four o’clock in the morning we will have just half a dozen police officers on duty in the city centre, or even as few as four officers, which is beyond belief.
‘Cops are getting called to nightclubs to break up fights at 6am on a Sunday morning. The situation is spiralling out of control. Sooner or later something horrific is going to happen.’
Insp Hanson, who is chairman of the local Police Federation, said the force was so stretched in the early hours they let violent yobs walk free rather than take officers off the street to process the crimes.
No problem: Labour councillor Pat Karney said he does not understand police critique of the drinking in Manchester
‘I am told regularly by colleagues that public order offences are not being acted upon because there are so few officers on duty and making an arrest would take them off the street for hours.’
The problem was worsened by cuts to police budgets and rank-and-file officers, he said.
Dr Henry, a senior metallurgist with a chemical firm, had been out socialising with friends at the city’s Malmaison Hotel and a bar in the city's trendy Northern Quarter district before he the unprovoked attack.
In a statement to Manchester Crown Court he said: ‘I was talking to them for a few minutes before they started punching. The attack was brutal, violent, beyond the scope of my imagination. I was an innocent, hardworking man that didn't deserve what I got.’
Croydon, 25, from Manchester, was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual body harm. A warrant was issued for Buckley, 25, who has gone on the run.
The Mail has repeatedly highlighted the full scale of the misery and loutish behaviour inflicted on the public by Tony Blair’s government’s 24-hour drinking laws.
Home Office figures show the number of town centres and neighbourhoods officially classed as being overrun by problem pubs and bars has rocketed by 150 per cent – from 71 in March 2007 to 175 last year.
The situation in these areas is considered so bad councils have special powers to turn down planning applications for yet more bars to protect the public from further disorder.
It has also led to a massive increase in so-called cumulative impact zones – the official term for an area ravaged by alcohol-fuelled mayhem.
The Association of Chief Police Officers wants to be able to put drunks in holding cells where they will be charged up to £400 a night.
Since round-the-clock drinking was brought in, police officers have dished out an estimated 400,000 fines for drunk and disorderly behaviour.
Ministers have given councils new powers to limit the harm of excessive drinking but they have stopped short of returning to the traditional closing time of 11pm or midnight.
But Councillor Pat Karney, Manchester’s city centre spokesman, said: ‘As somebody who lives in the city and is regularly out after midnight, it’s not dangerous. If the police have problems with any licensed premises they can come to the town hall and ask for it to be reviewed.’
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