Test purchasing of age restricted goods by children

We are very grateful for the opportunity to comment on this consultation which stimulated a strenuous debate amongst our consultees.

Everyone was agreed about the desirability of taking action against shopkeepers for the unlawful sale of age-restricted goods with a view to stopping the practice. However, in general we did not support the idea of test purchasing by children.

1. The point was made that, to be effective, the child would have to be clearly under age. It might just be acceptable to use a youngster who was seventeen to test-purchase alcohol, but we had grave reservations about using children who were under sixteen, and clearly under sixteen, to test-purchase cigarettes or fireworks.
2. We also had serious reservations about the subsequent requirement for the children to act as witnesses in any subsequent prosecution. This would be a particular problem for children under sixteen who would be required to attend an adult court and, we assume, face questioning by the defence.
3. We also had questions about the safety of any youngsters used in this way. We assume that they could not come from the area where the shop was located, but what action would be taken to protect them against possible future reprisals?
4. The bottom line for all the parents, whom we consulted, was that no one could contemplate allowing their children to be used in this way and so, by extension, they did not think that it was reasonable to expect others to do what they were not prepared to do themselves.
5. The only caveat was that surveillance still used children in so far as the shopkeepers would be caught selling age-restricted goods to children when children actually went in to make purchases. The difference would be that these children would be used unwittingly as opposed to the proposal of using children knowingly with test purchasing. In surveillance cases, there is still the problem of children having to give evidence and being subjected to cross-examination. We recognise the dilemma and do not have a solution, but were opposed to any proposal for test purchasing.