A Warden’s Patrol

By Paul and Alan

I’m a neighbourhood warden working in the west end of Newcastle. Part of our job is patrolling the council estates around the area.

On this particular Friday night we were on patrol with another colleague, we were on the Westmorland road it was around about 9 o’clock in the evening and across the road we spotted a group of youths; 3 girls 6 lads between the ages of 13 and 17 years of age. They were shouting, swearing, being very loud. We approached them, as we did we saw that one of the girls who was around about 15 years old lying on the grass absolutely mortal drunk. The rest of the group were drunk as well but this girl was more so and her two friends you know were egging her on, taking the micky out of her, thought it was a great laugh, didn’t seem concerned about her at all.

We approached them, spoke to them, tried to get them to calm down. One of the lads who was 13 years old pulled a condom out of his pocket and more or less said I know what I’m going to be doing tonight at which point we thought it was a bit out of order, we rang the police and we hung around until the police arrived. They eventually came, the girl still out on the grass, didn’t know where she was, the police took her into the car, took her home and we thought that was the end of that. We came in the next day patrolling around about 12 o’clock in the afternoon, low and behold we saw the same girl, out with the same group of lads and this is you know 15 hours after the police took her home to her parents and she was still allowed back out and its just a worry that a) the parents didn’t take any action against her, possibly kept her in, grounded her, there didn’t seem to be any respect for her and also the lack of care from her two friends came to the fore who if we hadn’t of arrived would they of let things go further than they have and its just a worry that alcohol has this affect on young people.