Booze brings out beast in beauty

Fairfax

DRINKING PROBLEM: Police say they are confronting a growing number of alcohol-fuelled women drivers and street brawlers.

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The fairer sex is no more, say police who are confronting a growing number of alcohol-fuelled women drivers and street brawlers.
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And today we can show you the evidence - the snapshot of 24 hours in New Zealand's increasingly violent cities.

Eight Sunday Star-Times reporters and photographers hit the streets with police last Saturday night in Manukau, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch, for the assignment which begins today in our Focus section. Statistics show police were called to a violent incident every 80 seconds in the 24 hours from 8am last Saturday.

Police in each centre told of escalating problems with drunk females, including more frequent links to violent street crimes, even though the number of women charged with violent offending has remained static in the past five years.

Sergeant Andrzej Kowalczyk, of Wellington's tactical policing unit, said a prime example occurred a few weeks ago when a woman viciously assaulted another in an inner Wellington city car park, stomping repeatedly on her head as she lay unconscious.

"The fairer sex thing is no more."

Early last Sunday, two boozed brides-to-be on their hen nights fought outside an inner-city Wellington bar, sparking a street brawl. When police arrived, one "hen", wearing fairy wings torn in the melee, demanded a friend call her lawyer as they hurled abuse at arresting officers.

Officers also said they were increasingly transporting home comatose or incoherent women for their protection.

Statistics add weight to police concerns.

Women's drink-driving convictions have risen almost 17-fold over the past 25 years and are still escalating, reaching a record of 4577 women in 2005, the most recent data available from Statistics NZ. Women made up 22 per cent of drink-driving convictions in 2005, up from 5 per cent in 1980 and 13 per cent in 1990.

In the past month the cases of four women charged with drink- driving with children in their cars have hit the headlines. The latest case involved a 23-year-old, allegedly clocked in the Waikato last week doing 146km/h with three unrestrained children in the car.

Alcohol Advisory Council chief executive Gerard Vaughan said younger women, particularly, were adopting the male pattern of binge drinking. But women's bodies could not break down alcohol as efficiently as men's, and their risk of long-term organ damage, especially to the liver, was higher.

- © Fairfax NZ News