CONTRACEPTION: More teenage girls visiting clinics

One out of every ten 14- to 15-year-old girls attended a contraceptive clinic in 1995-96, a 15 per cent rise over the previous year, figures from the Department of Health revealed yesterday.

A total of 61,000 attended such clinics, compared with 53,000 the previous year, and only 8,000 in 1975, when records first began.

But a spokesman for the Family Planning Association said that their attendance did not necessarily mean that they were sexually active. "They might have just picked up a couple of leaflets for use at a later date," she said. The teenage pregnancy rate in 1989-90 was 10 in 1,000, whereas the most recent figures showed that it had fallen to 8.3 per 1,000.

Victoria Gillick, the anti-contraception campaigner, is to present a petition to Downing Street tomorrow demanding doctors only prescribe the Pill to underage girls in the "most exceptional cases". She is backing the crusade of Jenny Bacon, whose 16-year-old daughter died after being prescribed the Pill.