Unaccompanied children prohibited from certain premises
A responsible person commits an offence if; knowingly allows an unaccompanied child aged under 16, to be on the premises;
- at any time if the premises are exclusively or primarily used for the supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises, or
- at a time between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. when the premises are open for the purposes of being used for the supply of alcohol for consumption there.
No offence is committed under this section if the unaccompanied child is on the premises solely for the purpose of passing to or from some other place to or from which there is no other convenient means of access or egress.
Where a person is charged with above offence, it is a defence that;
- he believed that the unaccompanied child was aged 16 or over or that an individual accompanying him was aged 18 or over, and
- he had taken all reasonable steps to establish the individual’s age, (he asked the individual for evidence of his age, and the evidence would have convinced a reasonable person.)
- nobody could reasonably have suspected from the individual’s appearance that he was aged under 16 or, as the case may be, under 18.
Guilty of this offence is liable to to a fine not exceeding Level 3: £1,000
