POLICE have vowed to clamp down on youngsters stealing and misusing gas canisters.

Inspector Jim Bailey, of Barrow police, said inhaling the gas could prove fatal.

The canisters are used to refill lighters and typically contain butane gas.

Police believe the youngsters involved are around 12-15 years old, and are keen to stamp out the incidents before someone gets hurt.

Insp Bailey said: "We've found in the last three or four weeks there seems to be a growing trend of children doing this.

"These kids are misusing these gas canisters and putting themselves at serious risk of potential death. Someone could get seriously hurt.

"We think they are stealing the canisters, rather than going into shops and buying them. Some may be getting adults to buy them but we don't think the shops would sell them to children."

The police are proactively taking steps to clamp down on the issue, and have urged the public to be vigilant.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Reports of youths obtaining lighter fuel and misusing it.Working in partnership with local retail stores to stop this#Don'tbefuelish <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/besafe?src=hash">#besafe</a> <a href="https://t.co/8dcj3WRqq9">pic.twitter.com/8dcj3WRqq9</a></p>— Barrow Police (@barrowpolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/barrowpolice/status/910465984271732736">September 20, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Insp Bailey said: "We've been going around the town into shops and getting their co-operation from them.

"We want to alert the public and raise awareness to what they're doing. We urge anyone who knows anything about this to get in touch and we'll take action.

"If you see anything and don't want to tell us you can report it to the shops.

“We've found a lot of these empty canisters around and we're looking into where they're taking them. We need to know these areas so we can go and find the children behind it."