Fines for antisocial behaviour to be extended

Noisy neighbours, vandals, graffiti sprayers and fly tippers would receive fixed-penalty fines under a Bill to tackle antisocial behaviour.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has identified low-level anti-social crime, poor parenting and bad neighbours as central concerns for many people, particularly those living in deprived urban areas.

Among the measures expected to be included in a White Paper at the beginning of next year is an expansion of the £40 and £80 fixed fines system.

The Government ran a pilot scheme for on-the-spot fines this summer for offences including being drunk and disorderly, throwing fireworks, using threatening behaviour and wasting police time.

In addition to the police, people entitled to give out tickets for the fines may include binmen and other council workers, neighbourhood wardens and the new civilian police patrol officers.

The Home Office intends to make clubs, pubs, and other entertainment venues contribute to the cost of policing areas in which extra officers are deployed to deal with drunkenness and alcohol-fuelled crime.

Government plans to try out specialist courts to deal with the wider range of offences. These "antisocial behaviour courts" would be given powers to use restorative justice, in which offenders are made to confront their actions by, for example, meeting their victims.

Other proposals expected in the Bill include "behaviour contracts" drawn up for parents of unruly children.Shopkeepers could be fined for selling spray paints to juveniles, in an attempt to stop children covering walls with graffiti.

But Harry Fletcher, of the probation union Napo, said enforcing the swath of new offences and fines would require tens of thousands of extra wardens, possibly under the Government's new Community Support Officer scheme. Implementing them would be too costly, undermining the whole scheme, he said.