COMMUNITY leaders in Weardale have organised an awareness night to try to tackle the problem of under-age drinking.

Parents, teachers, licensees and the police have been invited to attend the meeting, being held at the Stanhope Community Centre tonight, at 6pm.

Sergeant Jim Pitcher, who is officer-in-charge of police in Weardale, said he believed the children were taking the alcohol, perhaps won in raffles, from their homes and drinking it in the streets.

Other youngsters were believed to be giving older teenagers money to buy alcohol for them from shops in Stanhope and Wolsingham.