20-year-old

Laura Hall is thought to have become the first person to be banned from buying or drinking alcohol anywhere in England and Wales.

20-year-old Laura Hall has become the first person to be banned from buying or drinking alcohol anywhere across England and Wales.

Laura Hall (pictured) was told by a court yesterday not to enter a pub, bar, club or off-licence for two years.

The drinking banning order also states that she cannot buy alcohol or drink in any public place.

Police applied to magistrates for the order because of the number of drink-related offences that Hall had been involved in.


She had already been banned from pubs and clubs in her home town of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, under the PubWatch scheme.



âThis is the first [drinking banning order] issued on a nationwide basis,â said Sgt David Roberts, of Bromsgrove police.

âWe chose to use this new legislation as a way of helping address Lauraâs offending behaviour. 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.â

Hall must also go on an alcohol misuse course as part of the order handed out by Kidderminster magistrates.

It could be lifted after a year if she completes the course and has not breached any of its conditions.

PC Neil Sharpe, licensing officer for Redditch and Bromsgrove, said he hoped it would be a example to others.

However Rachel Seabrook, of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, was concerned about the practical aspects of the order against Hall.

âI am not opposed in principle to somebody being banned from drinking alcohol in public, but I do have doubts about whether itâs a realistic thing to enforce,â she said.