Royal Borough retailers and licensees have scored full marks and earned the praise of trading standards officers and the police following the latest joint operation to clamp down on underage sales.

All nine off-licences and supermarkets visited in the operation - eight in Maidenhead and one in Eton Wick - refused to sell alcohol to the three specially-trained young people who were being secretly monitored by trading standards officers.

Seven of the nine asked for proof of ID and the other two asked the child their age during the joint operation carried out on Friday April 4 by the council’s trading standards and licensing officers and Thames Valley Police.

Steve Johnson, trading standards manager, said: ”We are absolutely delighted with the results of this latest operation. The 100% success rate among the licensees we visited proves that the message on under-age sales of alcohol is really hitting home to retailers who sell alcohol.

“Of course we will continue to stress the importance of asking for proof of age and refusing to sell to anyone suspected of being under-age who cannot produce this proof.

“Meantime these results are extremely encouraging and reflect an increased awareness among supervisors of designated premises and their staff to be very careful not to sell alcohol to minors.

“They also go a long way to reassuring the public that retailers are taking a responsible attitude to the problems of under-age drinking following statistics in the press recently claiming that nearly 50% of children have had an alcoholic drink.”

Debie Pearmain, police licensing officer, said: “This latest joint operation between ourselves and the Royal Borough has produced some really encouraging results which are a major improvement on the test operations we carried out last year.

“In those operations, 38 visits were carried out between May and July and 12 sales were made, and in August two sales resulted from a further eight visits.

“In all these cases the offenders were issued with either fixed penalty notices, cautions or warning letters.”

The continuing clampdown on under-age sales of alcohol is reinforced by the ongoing message to licensees to always ask for proof of identity such as driving licence, passport or accredited ID card - and to ensure that staff whose duties include selling alcohol receive proper training and support.