POLICE today defended the way they handled the problem of street drinkers in Blackburn town centre after an afternoon of mayhem.

The move came as one of the group which congregates in the Boulevard claimed they were not doing any harm.

Two arrests were made after hours of disruption on Thursday that saw a group of young people fighting amongst themselves, creating havoc with traffic, and sleeping on pavements.

Shoppers and the licensed trade called for police to clamp down on the menace after the introduction of a new ban on town centre street drinking.

Today Lee Craig, 34, of Woodvale Estate, Darwen, claimed to be one of the main people of what he called the 'Bouley Gang". He said there were 10 adults in the group who spend their days getting drunk at the Boulevard, and that he himself had been doing it for 20 years.

But he claimed the Bouley Gang was peaceful and blamed any trouble on younger drinkers.

Lee said: "I'm not doing any harm. We are not shoplifting, or bothering anybody. We are buying the drink ourselves.

"I am here every day, from nine in the morning until I get drunk. I have been doing it for 20 years. How many people stand and drink outside a pub? There are a lot of young people who cannot handle it and cause trouble."

Acting Chief Inspector Judith Finney said there had been very few arrests since the Crystal Clear ban was introduced in April.

She added: "The ban was tested to its extreme during the World Cup. If the ban was ever going to cause us any problem in terms of policing it, it would have been then and it didn't."

"We are not having to enforce it to the degree we thought we would have done. The majority of people are actually very responsible.

"There will always be isolated cases where people do drink on the street and there are no police officers on hand.

"The campaign is about reducing alcohol related acts of violence, and getting people to take responsibility for their actions."

Insp Finney said the force would be conducting a six month review of the scheme to see if it was working and what could be done to improve it.

"The licensees have had a lot of input in this and without their support and co-operation we can't make the ban work," she said.

"If they are letting people go out of their premises with bottles, they have a part to play in all this."

In response to criticism that the ban was not targeting daytime drinkers she said: "Weekends are our biggest time and I make no apologies for having more officers on at the weekend.

"But the whole reason we work together is because it's not just a police problem. It's a town problem."