Last updated at 10:52, Thursday, 02 April 2009

A MOTHER whose alcoholic son has been given an Anti Social Behaviour Order says he should be banned from buying booze.

ALAN BIRKETT

Alan Leslie Birkett hit the headlines in August last year, after being given the ASBO for being drunk 21 times at Furness General Hospital and being abusive to staff and patients over an 18-month period.

The 46-year-old was banned from all three hospitals in Morecambe Bay for five years, unless he was attending an appointment or an emergency.

Birkett, of Longway, Barrow, is currently on remand after pleading guilty to arson and breaching his ASBO.

But his mother has said she fears he is beyond help.

Thelma Birkett, who lives in Windermere, told the Evening Mail: “My husband and I have done everything we can for him, but he continued to drink and drink.

“We spent thousands doing up a flat for him in Bowness, and then we came back one day and he’d put all the furniture in the yard.”

Mrs Birkett added she could not bring herself to visit her son in prison, where he is awaiting sentence after setting his flat on fire in October.

She said: “I won’t go down to see him. It’s a horrible experience, but it’s heartbreaking for me because I want him to be better.”

Mrs Birkett said she does not believe giving an ASBO to alcoholics is the correct way to address their problems.

She said: “He is a chronic alcoholic and he’s been getting worse and worse over the past eight years.

“It is like a disease and the orders don’t work. I feel the only thing that would help him is if they put his photo up in all the shops selling alcohol so he couldn’t buy anymore.”

Birkett has previously been given four community rehabilitation orders but has failed to tackle his addiction to alcohol.

Mrs Birkett said: “I’m getting older now and it’s getting to the point where I don’t think I can carry on like this any more.

“ It’s a sheer waste of life to be drunk all the time but there is just so little by way of help for him.”

Birkett is due to be sentenced at Preston Crown Court on May 18.

First published at 11:50, Wednesday, 01 April 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk